The air is brittle this ominous, wintry night.

The slivers of a life you used to know still haunt you, as surely as you have permitted them to be a haunt to others.

Without question, it is those memories that spur your ruminations; that cause your copious circumlocutions; which compell you to stand on this somber boulevard in front of this crumbling, but once stately manor that now is a languid presence with the solitary purpose of looming over the vast grounds.

It is obligatory that you proceed along the avenue that used to split the yards that are now overgrown and chocoblock with twisted vines, and thistles.

You pause, to gather your strength.
One deep inhailation and then you hold your breath as you grip the tarnished handle and lock leaver.

With a perfect degree of strength your thumb recalls, the mechanism is undone.

Your arm pushes forward.

The silence is disturbed by a warbling creak as the heavy door is slowly opened.

You exhale, then before you lose your nerve you quickly pass through the ingress and enter into the foyer,
which is instantly familiar in the dim, flickering light and the long, slender adumbrations effected by the gossamer encaked voltives jutting from the dusty walls.

Though it has remaned unchanged  
throughout all the time that has passed, standing in the ornate room affirms that the warmth with which you used to be recieved here has been abandoned to a frigidity.

You feel as if this room remembers you.

This is as far as I dare go with you, my friend, though I know you must continue.

I have listened to your stories, so
I know you have many rooms to search.

The closier that you seek is in a matter that is not my own.

I will depart upon rendering these words of warning:

When visiting the past,

As you daringly explore these often haralded halways,
Be careful what you leave behind.
Take caution not to lose yourself,
For a shadow lingers in the Suite Sublime.

The new american generation**

afraid to question their teachers
scared to stand out
not with different clothes but
with intellect and knowledge
the want to know more no longer exists
for it has been replaced by the want to fit in
histories inventors paved the way with sharing new ideas
we think getting called on to share ideas is torture
we complain saying the lords name in vain
they cannot see what God expects is us to try

empty buses rolled on down
the busy downtown street--
faceless figures flying by
that have no time to meet.
shifting, swerving, shapeless shadows
and a muffled shuffling of feet.
I wonder if they ever wonder
about intimacy with me.
I keep on tracking every bus
that passes through the sleet,
but angry beeping, noxious fumes
and that harsh thumping beat
keeps me still and keeps me silent--
motionless in my seat.
nervous glances, twitchy fingers
and a tippy tap of feet
makes me asks myself in silence
if I should get something to eat.
jagged cracks sound through the air
as verbal tacks pin here and there
and spoken word and shouting, too
all the noises the humans like to do.
The high-pitched whining;
the deep, low rattling;
the stark, empty sighing;
the unguided battling
all of these condensed into one
with more added in for added fun.
Disconnect--
the neural wires unlock and retract
as vine-like growths along the spine
come undone across the back;
cure it with wine,
cure it with liquor,
a tonic make it quicker.
smoke a little grass and ****
chew a little on a seed,
take the stem between your lips
and snap it right in two--
Let it stand,
a monument to the experiences
wrongly cut before completion.

a crook in the neck and
a creek out back,
behind the lines of grass
and stately shapes of trees
with blades of wild oats and wheat
stretching all the way up the knee.
the pretty kind of loveliness
across the flower's face,
the dull, ignored cruelty
of symmetry and grace
all coalesce in me tonight
all pile up bit by bit inside my bones
all collect in gasps and sighs and tiny moans
all create in me a tiny pile waiting to be set alight
give me panic give me terror give me dread and fright and
might
it might come alive and on fire
burning the backs of my soles
making me restlessly wired.
plugging me in and powering me up
they wanted a show so i had to grow
they wanted to see my cute little pout
and so they sought and shook me out
from my voided, unknown cave
to have me put upon the collective
a hidden ornament on the human race--
I need to leave, to flee, to run
and never wonder why
if leaving were so important then
why didn't I simply fly?
fly?
fly?
no flight for birds of plastic wings
and a body made of artificial things:

concrete, plaster, bits of brick, glass
and the darkest, densest mass
rise into the air above
as gas clouds they float on up
into the darkening sky
covered by cowardly clouds
too afraid to fly
Disconnect--
dial tone sounds and it becomes clear
there was never anything to connect

"On second thought I will not stay."
As I turn to say goodbye.
There is nothing left for us to say,
The conversation has run dry.

We tried our best to make it work,
We tried to live the lie.
So it's time to go, to avoid the hurt.
So you wont have to cry.

That I must walk out the door
Is for the best, you can't deny.
But I'll remember you forever more,
Until the day I die.

My eyes got caught, drawn to the way you walk.
Thoughts manipulate what I say.
The clock ticks, but there's no stir.
The World Is Frozen.

The ice of hearts, prevents the spark.
I'd warm it with my hands if I could.
But like time, I fear I would lose them too.
The World Is Frozen.

Nothing enters my mind, and nothing leaves.
A scene, us dancing, The light,
of Lake Michigan on our heels.
The World Is Frozen.

False words we've spoken, hearts ripped open.
We hide what we think, so no one knows -
what we feel. I can't breathe.
The World Is Frozen.

My heart stops beating, feet lose feeling.
I stand there dumb, hands numb.
If only I could speak.
The World Is Frozen.

**-N.C.