That’s the way the light echoes
The moonlight stretching out in a lounging shawl
Like waves whose cusps fold and foam to kiss the sea,
As they roll away and the way to shore,
In the broad arms of the breeze
And their faint disturbance of surface romance.

The men at the front of the boat, cruising along.
The women singing a song that was famous long ago.
The sound of the song growing.
The sound filling with wind and interwoven ocean strings.
Telling tales which were living long ago.

One man thought.
‘Of my life tell only a few stories
Burning brightly with my virtues and vice
For lights are only passionate flurries
Those last lights before the eyes
Of he who sinks beneath the ice.
Telling tales which were living long ago.
That’s the way the light echoes.’

I whispered it when I left this morning.
"Tonight I will ask the question."
I’ll asked her to a film, I’ll say
“This week, we could see Yesterday?”
Although nerves melt me away
As though a burning silhouette.
"I swear my voice is always stern,"
I say, "What harm's another day?"
With my voice on a squeaking fret.

The haunted concretes creak without a sound
And trains rattle to shake the way of dying candlelight.
Avoidances dance, twirling round and round.
The haunted concretes creak without a sound.
Words gust heavy and unprofound
While I must be this wavering kite.
While trains rattle to shake the way of dying candlelight,
And the haunted concretes creak without a sound.

Here where they dissect creatures that once scuttled
And pull them limb from limb,
And pour wine beside, which swirls in the glass before it's settled.
The creature's gravestone a girl with a smile grim.
A dim expression that deflates with the next plate,
As she surrenders to digging in.



Nearby seniors' droning threatens to drown
My mind with inescapable numbness.
Again, I take a glass and swallow it down
Praying on a secret unseen finesse.
I say a joke that to her seems lost
As though its ghost just went past.
I butter my tongue with liquid as though toast;
Regret all I've said and call for a glass.
I tighten my tie tight around my neck
The tangled knot neatly risen up.
Joke as though throwing cards straight from a deck.
By dessert feel numbness on my tongue’s cusp.
Dreaming she would not be one to beguile,
She and I
Evacuate the chatter with a stretched smile.

Passing lanterns looming on a night walk,
I begin to her a conversation.
Yet only dare to make the smallest talk,
Not risking she leaves an awkward situation.
I haven't the courage to encourage
What may enrage nor leap near isolation.
What would the forefathers say?
A man wouldn't wait nor hesitate.
But I stutter before I can state
Whether I'm a hasty man
With fast unlasting thrills,
Or willing to wait
And understand.

Which question is it?
But why is it this?
Perhaps it's better I ask with lips,
And without words.
So let soft suckling be heard.
But why is that?
I can't possibly, probably.
But may I know facts exact?

Then dawn rose with the sun alone and untimely.
I whispered it when I left this morning,
When I was returning home suddenly,
"Tonight I will ask the question.”

Since she waits there for me.
A young tongue is spinning and spiralling.
Lips collapse into antique whispers.

I'm certain she waits there for me.
By delirium and thoughts lost.
By flowing fountains draped with moss.
She folds fingers round the thorn.
Th'evening lingers, for golden light has lit it.
Scolding any scorn that drops to forlorn.

She has gone now.
But she'll be back soon.

We were assailing city streets as was usual.
The pitter patter of passing feet all around.
A place solely described as bilingual
And beautiful, took her casual attention.
Acknowledging her distraction I asked, “There then?”
“I love the decor, all red, black and gold.”
“It is very pretty, interweaving
Fake, artificially antique and old.”
“But looks can often be deceiving.”

I looked to her, reading the sight before
Me. Her own dress like precious noire decor.
Dark tresses arranged in a precise mess.
Her faux french and her fox fur raincoat,
Clinging on with a concealing cologne,
The accent she had and the way she spoke.
She the precise princess of images
With a thousand evidences to say
That she was perfect in a way.

“Yes, I suppose they can be.”

As I lie in bed,
Light falls like a stranger’s memory
On the walls of palest grey,
And tonight, of love, money and dignity,  
I have nothing to say.
I have known every name and noun.
Vow and verb, vowel and word
And finally find nothing to say.
I suppose that’s what must be done,
If the floor lies in blatant disarray.
I suppose that’s what must be done.
There’s a pattern of bricks and torches
That are on a screen and are nothing more
But the firing of neurons and the burning of my eyes.
I would walk out into the night
Were it true that I could find my shoes.
For I cannot dare have bare feet bear the ground
And be mauled by such an unnatural place for them.
Laptop lit up
Like electric candlelights
With candid candescence,
Why would I dare into the fray of night,
Or daylight’s thriftless touch
Which would age and burn me
Like a vampire on a pile of wooden stakes
That kindled, burnt, dwindled and burnt out.
Ladies and Queens of the night,
Gathering in a circular court
And being veiled behind that smoke
And the strokes of grey paint
That were here before anyone.
She crescendos and sharpens into a crescent blade
That glints and glistens by sunshine in the night.
Like his scythe, which cut through the light
And drew nothing but the dew and due payments.
I wonder if he would bother come by
And thereby transport me but not my body.
For why would he come try
And change my position
When no other conviction
Has succeeded.
Without and within the voices they sing
Don't dare.
Care without the face that does.
Share without the side that shows.
Despair and depreciate without the face
Of sorrows and woes.
It's all rolling along and I’ve done nothing wrong.
Made no mistake.
Made no call to heartache.
This is all.
This is the hall of the humbled king,
Who still bears his solitude
But reduced like Vesuvius
Has no longer his magnitude,
Only that he was destroyed flameless.
Without and within the voices they sing.
For he was born and has borne
Nothing of importance since, but innocence.
It is, I suppose. It must, I suppose, be done.
It is, I suppose, of no great importance.

Please, if you have the time
Listen to the moon, she's really trying tonight.
She'll fatten and she'll thin.
Her voice shall strain and tighten till tight.
Please, please, listen.

She that uncracked thunderbolt,
Who never dared dash across the shadow shades
But remained to halt
Above the sea and grassy meadows and glades.
Hold the applause.

She sits up at the piano,
Hear her go.
Oh moonlight
Sing. Sing for us tonight.
Hear her before the morning glow.

To me you are the all new pop single.
Who I find everywhere I go and
Fills my heart with starlight when we mingle.
Although whenever others did demand
To know what I felt for you, I said such
That I can't stand your perpetual presence.
But this is pretense. You do touch me much
That when you pass, secretly I sway, dance
And feel your rhythm or I hum along.
Remembering your every word and simply
Enjoying to adjoin joyously note
For note and meet our meanings' harmony.
You, simple jingle, sweet pop single, float,
Brightening my feeble mind. Years may go
With a dying fall, but I will still say so.

Major and minor harmonies crumble
Like disintegratable solutions
That dissolve to sweetness. Amiable
Feelings of fulfilment melt ambitions
And the curves of my guitar greet slim fingers.
I don't care for my poor technique or flaws,
Knowing the simple sound simply lingers
After slim fingers have strummed and struck chords.
This wooden thing, strummed summer instrument.
The fair dust of fairies the very notes
Releasing and ceasing the incessant
Torments that are elevated to float
Harmlessly above and about my ears.
That is release, that is peace beyond years.