today, I have a biting case of gray-
a need, for what I don't know.
like there are pine needles, under my skin, digging their way in,
splinters through my rib cage, tickling the strings that attach me to my heart.

I have been checking my pockets for days now, found only worry stones,
shined and polished by my thumb.
For days now, I have had dusty fingerprints, for days now, I have felt this way.
for days I have carried warm cloth, the unborn child of my spirit,
fresh from the machines.
Buried my face in them- in order to find solace,
for days now, I have slept in.

Sometimes gray is soft and daze inducing-
somedays it is a scratchy wool afghan stretched thin across my body,
leaving channel marks and rashes-
it is an unforgettable, unexplainable feeling,
the feeling of gray.

One day in march I took a walk down the greenway
and my movements became clear to me-
cigarette flicks and head shakes had purpose.
Since then- Gray is overwhelming.
It was a cloudy day when I took them- it has remained that way since.
For days now, I have let my worries gather on my thumbs and fingers-
for days now, I have swallowed the stones.

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there.  Good dog.

Did you ever dream of trees
Of living in the mountain breeze
To cling to faces made of rock
To float beyond your cabin's dock.
Have you dreamt of flying high?
To wave goodbye and search the sky
To meld with rock and sand and soil
To wrap with oak roots tangle and toil
Have you ever been like me,
And wish to roam the great blue sea
Or look a lion in the eye
To feel it live, to feel  it die
For if you know, for if you've tried
Then nothing makes you run, you hide
But if you still live in fear
Then you don't deserve those dreams my dear.

The sky is grey
With falling ash.
I wait upon
The snapping lash.
The sonic boom
That scalds my skin.
Bites my back,
Licks my chin.
A cry bursts through
My ****** lips.
And tiptoes through
The sails and ships.
My face is raw
And black and red.
By blades as thin
As pin and thread.
The rope that binds
With hostile ease,
Is as merciless
As the greedy seas.
The cannons gleam,
And spit out smoke
Then fire sang,
And war awoke.
I strained a gaze
On black and white,
That streamed right through
The brightened night.
Now torn to shreds
And at my feet,
It was the last
Of the pirate fleet.