The fourth floor window reveals nothing
Save for a jagged row of apartment buildings,
The mist that precedes the rain,
And, of course, a blank slate sky
Obscured by the built-up layers of dust
And debris that cake the window,
Spreading like mold from the cracks
And blooming in the corners
As the world falls to pieces
In the pouring rain that cannot hope
To wash away the sins I have committed
In this place.

He calls himself a runaway,
A bandit, a thief, a liar,
But I have seen a sacred place
Trapped inside of him,
And he is just as human
As he claims not to be.

He wanders the backroads at twilight,
Whistling, wondering, waiting,
Watching for a double rainbow;
He’s seen six, and is living for the seventh,
“Another sin,” he’ll say,
And maybe he’ll never find it,
Or perhaps he’ll be released, somehow.

Last night’s clothes
Still smell like the ghost of you,
Burnt amber and a hint of allspice,
Just enough to leave me
Haunted.

The ******* the train is nothing more
Than an illusion, or perhaps a delusion;
What is she, if not the bitter, bitter dregs,
The last of the burnt coffee, gone cold,
The watered down scrapings off the bottom
Of the cup we call life?

I set out to be a better man,
And though the path is littered
With the remains of those
Who faltered at the gate,
Those who failed further on,
And every poor soul who’s still crawling by,
Battered and embittered
By the trials of the trail,
It’s these little victories
That keep me going,
Choosing love over hatred,
Kindness over cruelty,
Calm over that brutal impulse
Deep within each of us,
Sight over blindness,
Speech over silence.

It was June, the month of broken promises and hopeless dreams.
I was further gone than I’d been before, perhaps a bit recklessly,
But we were young and restless and the night was aging fast.

So we went to war, all guns and roses and bloodless violence;
The guns weren’t loaded, and the roses had wilted last month,
But we needed to see who’d be victorious, so we fought.

The battle raged on and on past the midnight hour, and I?
I prayed for my salvation, and that I’d die younger than the others
Because we couldn’t stop until there was but one man left standing.

It was June, the land of broken dreams and hopeless promises.
I was young, perhaps younger than I’d been before the war,
But the night was dying, and in the light of dawn I saw.

Morning was breaking, and I was too, but I’d be going home first
Because at my feet were the bloodied bodies of my allies,
Scattered amongst the wilted roses and the now hollow guns

I closed the eyes of the one I’d loved above all the others,
But it was cold as stone and the roses were quickly overtaking him,
Because as hard as I’d prayed that night, death had kept me waiting.

It was June, the realm of love lost and something called grief.
I lay me down to rest amongst the young roses, and, bitter, bitter, bitter,
I celebrated the century with a single deadly bullet called deliverance.

I drew a line in the sand
Between you and me,
And said, “Thou shalt
Not crosseth this line.”
Well, the waters of time
Rise and they fall, and
The trench I’d dug
Flooded with the truth,
Spilling unbidden from
These lips and I, frozen
In shame and something
Like fear demanded,
“Thou shalt not crosseth
These waters.” And you,
Faithful and tangled in
My web of lies, did not
Cross. But, like Jesus
On the Cross, we bled,
And the rivers of blood
Knew no borders, so
I fled, further up the
Mountain, until there
Was an ocean between
Us. And I commanded,
“Thou shalt not crosseth
This sea.” But, having
Drawn my line in the sand,
I’d forgotten for a moment
The world was round,
And I found myself back
On a beach in Normandy
With you.

The kaleidoscope patterns of our footprints in the sand
And those of the seagulls that litter the beach
Like black and white winged pebbles
Are slowly being washed away by the rising water line,
Time and the encroaching tide welcoming us
Into the sea, with the Dolphins and the mermaids
Swimming and lounging on little mountains of rock
Close to the shore, beckoning us into their world.

Our world lies further back, behind the tide line,
The umbrellas and sunscreen and such
To shield us from the blazing sun
That sustains all life in their realm and ours,
And is, perhaps, the first and strongest connection we share
In this blinding world of sand and sunshine,
Where we and them become us.

We wade into the sea, all tentative, coltish legs
And shivers as the waves crash over us.
Everything turns magical as we dive in,
The underwater world blinding us with
It's salty, sandy currents and steams,
But through the rose tint borne
Of our foreignness in this place,
All I can see are dreams coming true.

A lady of the sea paddles up to us,
Offering us her treasures if we'll come
Live in her coral home and breathe the same salt water,
And I, lost in her world, found in her beauty,
Reach out to take her pale hand in mine,
And become as she says,
"I am yours, forever now, as you are forever mine."

It was Sunday, the day of madness, and I alone knew that.

Awakened in the midnight hours by another magnificent work

By the artist himself;




I’d spent the evening studying another of his masterpieces,

And I suppose that the indelible ochre ink he preferred

Stained my dreams;




I carried his ink and quill with me as I lay me down to sleep,

And, with great care, placed them on the night table

Nearest the door;




I laid down on his canvas, and covered myself in his melodies,

As the clock rang to announce the coming of midnight

And the silence grew louder still;




It had been Saturday, a day of merriment, a day of rejoicing,

But Saturday was no more, and the artist was indeed inspired

By its absence;




And in the darkness, he handed me a light - a painting,

A self portrait carved into a shard of the mirror I’d broken earlier,

Entitled - The Art of Loneliness.

They called me Pluto from afar, and I,
Nameless and void, embraced the title
With the force of a thousand burning suns,
Each one like the star I loved ever so dearly,
An immense sphere of fire which had me
Helplessly, hopelessly bound by its gravity,
Caught in its orbit from the beginning of time.

They called me Pluto still from further still,
Speaking my name as the orbit of myself
And their water world drove us apart,
And I gladly, worshipfully rejoiced –
I had a name; I was no longer void.
I was distant still, but they called me Pluto,
And I wore my name like regalia,
A crown upon my lifeless skin.

They called me Pluto still as they
Waded further from the cosmic shore
That was their home, sending probes
That touched the regolith of Mars –
There was life, and light, spreading out from Planet Earth,
So I waited, hoping they’d come for me
Sooner rather than later, tomorrow and not two centuries from now.

They called me Pluto even as they stripped me of my name –
I was ‘planet’ no longer,
And I grew colder and bitterer as I spun,
Because I knew things they did not,
Things about the rise and fall of civilizations.
They did not see what I had seen,
They had not been watching
Since the dawn-time.

They called me Pluto,
And they cried my name
As I watched them burn,
The light of the flickering candle in the dark
That had once been humankind
Flaring, more luminous than the sun for one bright, shining moment,
Then fading.

They called me Pluto in the aftermath,
As if I were the God of the underworld,
Guarding their lost souls from my far-off perch,
Shepherding that which could not be led,
But I was not their God, even if I’d once fathomed them as mine.
So here I wait, patient, eternal, void and barren,
For them to leave me lonely when they no longer
Dare to speak my name from the realm
I am the supposed guardian of;
They called me Pluto.