No river bed rock ever
Kisses the same water
Twice.

Autumn opens her arms
To September, and I close
My window for the first

Time since May.
I have had better
Summers. Love left behind

In a deluge of tears and regret.
Doctors sharing bad news
With honest concern;

Waves upon sand castles,
Moments; memories, then
Nothing.

I rest beneath the
Cold stream, perhaps
Allowing new waters

To feel my face in time.
For now, the rain strokes
Nothing but the glass

Of a window shut
To the chill of a dying
Summer.

Would we
know it
If we ever
felt it?..

shout out
****** a brush right straight down
the elemental throat
take all the things that make white
and paint the suburbs the city streets
the acres of corn fields variously
neon naked ladies
the truck stop babes
the pimps in black
the red and green lights yellow
caution
what is this canvas
if not the stew brewed now unfrozen
a big silver spoon
slid into
a commotion
a shotgun blast in a robbery
a bank
making false accounts for profit
the last ounce of street cred
blood leaking on the pavements black
they have power
those archangels those who preach
make America great again
I wanna go to a rally for
four years
have a maniac
speak dichotomies
like a psychotic
schizophrenic
one day sane the next neurotic
I take the brush and whitewash all of us and maybe
the nazis and imbeciles might pass  us by

When was the last time
I felt a raving hunger for life?
When had I but an eternity in moments,
on the edge of something vastly different?

How was it me and not you
who staked her soul high
on rolling hills of green,
took long draughts to savour, to condense
the weight of the world into one precious drink,

cup the shortest days in her palm and release them,
for her thoughts to balloon into the wild?

The delectable now—
ripe as berries for plucking in winter,
and all things, like music
must peter
into silence.

So I suppose my question to you
is not concerned with
the stack of newly-minted green in your pocket,
nor the fleet of shiny cars, but
your pure self, simply being.
It’s prodding the heart,
a tiny critter fluttering with wings, wondering:

when will you ever get a second chance at this—
all this storm
and inexplicable happiness—

or will you
go hunting for things,
whirling at mere traces
of power in your name—

or will you turn around
only to find a life
or a lie,
staring back wide-eyed
in endless shame?

© BT