A knife cuts clean the jugular of Greece,
Sun-shattered Autumn spurts in breezes,
Her face falls like crumpled sails of the trireme
~This is the sound of sinking clouds, mammatus~
The slow tottering head sinks into itself,
The arm of once-command lies lengthwise
Next to the sea, as waves erase all her form,
And the drear and maddened moon in its cage of stars.

Even when
All is said and done,
And I have become
A guardian angel
Over my past self,
Even then,
I have failed.

the sea with her songs and her freedom,
a rose in the desert tonight,

while the night with her beauteous wisdom,
holds the sky like the wings of a kite,


the moon is a ghost white and eerie,
skies carry the bird’s weary cry,

while the clouds dream of rain, brimming teary,
with each hollow sigh.


our love lies like ash long departed
and freedom's the wilds of the coast

and the sky where the swallow once darted,
has no star with their silvery frost,


oh, lover no love then could ever
be wiser or bolder than ours,

or lost as quickly with each new endeavour,
bewitched like the flo'ers.



so lover i wait here forever,
where the waves of the blue ocean swell,

a bride to the storm and the ether,
my song the sea's silvery knell,


for the muse sings of darkness forever,
and dark is the song ever sung,

and the sea finds its bow and its quiver,
and air fills her lung.


i'll wrap all my dreams in white paper,
and carefully tie with a bow,

then lay them all out with the ashes,
that lie where the wild berries grow,


and no one will ever e'er find me
and i will be lost in the end,

torn under the coast where the seas be
the voice of the land.


night grows from the death of the evening,
evening carries her stars and her seas,

the morning without ever seeming,
delights the bright sighs of the breeze,


dark voice of the sky and the landscape,
dark eye of the turbulent sea,

moon emperor, discoverer, wan dreamscape,
love jealous and free.

I.

she lives in one of the crummy rooms
down the hall
in the building
where the rats run and tumble
through its terrible walls
like children at play

she has intimate conversations

with saints
and pigeons
and the daffodils in the park
and the rats in the walls
and late at night
with her dead daughter

her boots echo down the hall
she's going to clean the gutters of trash
and feed the cats
I watch from my window
the cats come running from the abandoned church
hundreds come running
the kids call her cat queen
i call her savior

II.


I still hear those boot steps
when the air turns cold
and lakes freeze
and her ghost tells me
people die the way they live
and through the looking glass
down the rabbit hole
we'll all go


III.


there in this concrete
in that crummy room
was the thief that hunts my dreams

but you were something gentle and kind
a brightness in the projects

a caring heart
a loving soul
in this city where there were few