Prayers answered by
Echoes of themselves imparting
No advice, 
Repetitions of the question
Asked over again
Whispering softer
Each time it is refracted.
No thunderous voice from clouds agape
To shed light through stormy skies
Or seas parted to pave the path.
Spread the blood of the martyrs and
The Lamb across my door,
God does not live here, anymore.

Ticonderoga, bite-marks to the lead
Bare-bone, grammar school and phonics
Sentence structures, finger paint
Yarn through cardboard looms
Shel Silverstein and crab-apples
One day I will change the world.

Bus stops and
Bug-eyed sunglasses to block the
Fog-hazed sun.

The water falls by the bridge and
Atlas holds the globe in stone
The fog shrouds him, too.

Professor wears the sunglasses
And asks
What do you need to know?

Cobblestones and two-by-four
Planks buckling underfoot.

Natural light on brick,
Cement flower vase impressions mark the spot of
What I need to know.

Pendulums
Swing in skulls
Crashing against bone,
            Ticking
             Like
            Bombs
Counting down to self-destruct.
Three
           Two
                   One
Time's up, time's gone.

Listen to the silence
It screams louder than the
Noise.
Clarity is in the static
Electric is the
Voice.

Expressions louder than
Paint on a
Clown.
Do not lie to me.
Your body tells truths
When your mouth
Refuses to form them.

Mt great grandfather was
A Swedish violinist,
Back in Goteborg,
Like in Phantom of the Opera.
I like to think of him
Walking through cobblestone
Alleyways past pastel houses
And little markets selling lingonberries,
Playing his violin.
I heard he loved someone, once.
A woman before my great-grandmother.
I wonder if he played songs for her,
I wonder if she cried when he did.
But they're all dead, now.
His violin hangs on the wall
At my grandmother's house in Jersey,
Dry from all tears,
With splintered strings like torn
Vocal cords, no longer able to
Sing.