Outside my door
Beneath the hum of the spinning machinery of the night
The mechanized whirl of the star crusted mammoth
She waters her blouse with a stranger's lament
Grievously mourning the separation of what is
and what could never be
Carried away pell mell by the picking magpies
of lowered expectation
And beneath the bluster of the ancient whorl
Cars hiss past my window to remind me I'm alive
Sunken beneath the levels of minimum expectation

At least the hollow men
Stuffed with straws and petty blows
Had a space with which to be empty
Their petrified corpses litter the books
Mammoth mausoleums of man
Does the moon not pale at their description?

But these monuments are cold and skeletal
They do not burn with youthful fury
They do not wipe her tears
They do not whitewash her fears
And neither do I
Locked away in the isolation of my own discontent
The lighter flicks helplessly in hand
The bones of those hollow
will not catch

And on each side of my door
The other half shudders
Broken by the weight
Of lowered expectation

A light on the road
Call sign of the weary desert traveler
Cursing the altitude and the bone dry air
Mouthfuls of sand with every breathe
Gasping with sand in every breathe
The lamp of the poor hangs helplessly
Begging him on just a little further
Just a little further

I was young and they was old
When they hung Daddy
by the swimming hole

They came with dogs and guns and fire
And used the rope that held the tire
My mother wouldn't let me see
The night my Daddy climbed the tree

And now I'm old and they are young
The times have changed but hate is strong
It's like a **** or pestilence
That leaves you beaten on a fence

And when your life is finally thinned
Your only company is the wind
The violators in their beds
Not one regret lives in their heads

And even now when I am old
There still swings Daddy
by the swimming hole

I want to see the lion's den
I want to see that site
of immaculate salvation
And sit where Daniel sat
And breathe the putrid air of stone
and bone and moisture and blood
I want to see the ovens of Nebuchadnezzar
And, wrapping myself in an onion skin
shield of veiled promises and condemnations,
throw myself in
Take me to the killing fields
And, casting off my clothes,
let me wade through the blood of decent men
Slain to appease their Savior

But take me away from Allah's bomb tinkerers
Away from the hate groups
born from Christ's love
Away from the stone throwing rabbis
of the Old City
For I have seen these things
and know they exist
No, take me to the lion's den
Take me to the king's ovens
And lock the door