To linger in the stillness
Of Time's infinite wake
Is to stifle a lifetime
For loss' sake.
Take grasp of Your being,
Brief as it may seem,
For the rest is darkness,
And the silence:
Deafening.

The burn of the past is in the pain of my fingers
as the clouds of tomorrow loom overhead.
The fear of today should have died, but it lingers
and the key to control is in the purr of a cat.

It asks: “What's that sorrow that you speak of so fondly
and profoundly you cling to in the depth of the night?”
And you cringe and you crouch and you cry so resoundly
that the stars' tumbled tears fill with wisdom and fright.

“Even spiders have hearts that are deemed non-existent,”
says the cat who's own heart has never known cold.
The traces of truth in its words are insistant,
so you crumble and crawl to turn heedless things gold.

Not unlike the monster for which it was named,
With debaucherous whims that divide foreign lands;
Here at the briny, gilded portal to our home now stands
A hollow woman with a torch, whose warmth
Has become faded and disheartening, and her name
Mother of Philistines. From her once guiding hand
Emerges world-wide distaste; deranged eyes ransack
The smog-filled harbor that dystopias fame.
“Keep, other lands, your progressive pomp!” shrieks she
With welded lips. “Take our tired, our poor,
Our huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of our teeming shore.
Take these, the homeless, tempest-tost from me,
Lift your lamp as a guide and take them all!”