Love is a dish best served cold.
Or should that  be revenge?
Often they're interchangeable,
As the outcome is similar.
It's wise to fear both,
Both unexpected
And most anticipated... and dreaded.
They come out of the blue.
I excel at neither,
Though I keep my platter
On a low shelf.

Ungraded roads have many holes,
Gravel, and running ditches.
Before a rain, they seem more wide than narrow.
Long but terminal.
These roads I'm led to roam,
Not straight, but bending to travel.

Signs warn of deer or bumps,
With a bridge dead ahead.
Chances are, it's a single lane,
And timing dictates crossing.

My spinning wheels clear the ruts,
But soon they fill again,
As if I never passed.

I knew her in youth's folly;
The fumbling hands,
The tumbling wills,
The limbs entwined kind of peace;
The dinner glances,
The unbridled dances,
Commando skirts,
Deep knee squats,
What one thinks
But will not say.

I've screamed into an empty barrel,
Ran barefoot where I shouldn't,
Slid rusty things under my nails,
Touched my eyes with sharp sticks,
Ground my teeth with electric power,
Scorched my skin beneath the shower,
Turned informer on closest friends;
Drank turpentine and kerosene,
Mercury and gasoline,
Tore my skin, rend my entrails,
And other parts clearly unseen.
Include, if you wish,
An immortal soul.
My spirit, ****** as well.
Call the prayer, sound a bell.
That was heaven,
Now is hell.

Like the four horsemen
They're walking two abreast
In brown with clipboards;
Bulging satchels hang by their sides,
With brochures and pamphlets
For me, who looks down from my window,
To ponder when they leave.

The crowd on the hill is talking,
Gathering, nothing's still.
All ages, colors and creeds,
Smiling, grasping, awaiting his will.

It looks like earth they're offering,
Year after year the same.
Casting nets, these fishermen,
Fishermen beget.
They're card said they were sad to miss me.

They take it from the young and old,
The ill and hale, and all between.
They are the cream between the wafers,
These Guides and their cookies.

I learned to ask for nothing
At an awful early age;
And nothing gets monotonous,
Cause nothing stays the same.

As I grew in beingness,
Nothing never changed.

I expect nothing less
When I'm aged and grey;
Cause nothing still awaits for me
When cold and in my grave.

Don't dwell on your afterlife,
Don't fret on what you got;
After all the prayers are done,
There's nothing in the box.

I was raised on the shelf
Of a white bread world;
No marbled rye
Or whole wheat served.
Just plain white loaves,
All crusty and cold.
But my tastes matured
With tea and buttered toast.