~
Apathetic city skyline
This must be Drum Street
There's critical thinking
Digital tendencies

Pigeons on the roof
Kids in the library
Hail and flashpoint
Homeroom
Their final resting place

Who of you misses the bleak missiles of youth?
And how they used to hit like needles?

I can count your sufferings on my fingers
See them hidden in the tall grass
They move in secret
With shadow blister
As much as the caterpillar:
Elusive and eruciform

Sixteen crane wives
Collect on the guide wire
Their weathered plumage
Strangely displayed

Airplane debris on an uncharted wild
Macabre flowers growing out of air masks, gone quiet
The magic word is drear
It's a sorrow-filled caw
As if feathers from the grave
Clothing our fears

I can count the flock on my fingers
See them separate in mid-flight
Each a solitary path
Fusing rage and grief
Each a solitary path
Fusing rage and grief
~

Sometimes it's better to leave the pages BLANK
Sometimes the BEST is to not EXPRESS everything,
Let your emotions be wrapped beneath TRUST
Put your LOVE on the lap of future,
Let it BORN with peace.

Don't sum yourself up in ONE word,
Just LEAVE the pages blank.

Another empty hall
Where, just yesterday,
You both laughed and cried.
A dismal silence
Hangs
Where recently
Your spontaneous chatter
Filled the space.
An echoed
Recollection
But unfillable
This vacuum.
Interminable,
The expanse,
The sense of
Loss.

Jillybeans and Neddo,
My dear, dear old friends,
I ache for the
Familiarity
In this
Cavernous remnant
Of Life”.

M.
Winter 2022