In the margins of returning light,
city backstreets in hard rain,
people at every junction.
Personal memories, none.
Lost hope burned in the rain.
The evening stars, a pattern of
sorrow.

Nothing good will come of this.

Today I am sick.
Thinking is hard to come,
words as cutting pain.
Soul physicians,
should I disclose the
whole complaint,
and curse the sky.
Or watch the churches
burn and babies cry.
Sickness is a lonely place,
of distant echoes,
and long past.
Now I need to lie down
and close my eyes.
Letters of dust, blowing
around my room.
The nearest thing to life.

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie,
Life would be delight,—
But things couldn’t go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn’t be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I’d be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You wouldn’t be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,—
Yet they’d all despair,
For if here was there
We wouldn’t be we.

Raining down everywhere
Autumn tastes bittersweet by the river.
I want to paint the land in abstract
Subtle lines of a new day.
To delight and inebriate the few that call for courage.
But a whisper of cloud takes forever to appear.
And dead leaves are piled up in corners blown by a strange wind.
I wonder, what keeps them there?

The shallow water of the River Fen flows to impress,
But the warmth has now gone.
A heart sunk in mourning and bleakness comes without sound.
I see the couples walk by hand in hand, unaware of the bitter
sweet breeze that blows from winters harsh advance.

The old man walks alone days of youth in his heart,
But he looks back without sadness, without nostalgia.
A life simplified of images, and now he is able to
comprehend the world.
But who wants to know this?

As for me, I will keep on drifting away,
Or break up into many parts,
But I remain who I am!
Searching for you in this land of drifting souls.