some churches have bones,
and a graveyard for all the prayers
god didn't answer

golds sink down
the sky strange magics
miraculous the bridges
of leaves under October’s
wintry dusks calm and at rest
russet and purple the
trees yearn for the darks
of a retreating world
each leaf falling forever
each leaf a ghost
of hidden centuries
where the night’s eternal
stars wait, beautiful
in the perfections of the sky.

Now that life has
Scattered

To the ten
Directions

Blown by winds
Of change
Of chance

How

Where shall
We once more

Coalesce?

His teeth feral teeth
and putrid breath

does not correlate
with the pale shoulders

and soft ways of
the woman with him;

somehow they make
the Multiflora

rose, rise
and blossom.

the night in which
the dead come alive for a while

only to be frightened
right back to death
by the terrible masks and pumpkins
of the living