Down at the Shipyards people are *Waiting for their "Ship-to-come-in".     At the Ballpark people are *waiting for the "Home-run-hit".    At the Racetrack people are  *Waiting for "Their winning horse".   At the street corner people are  *Waiting for the "Light -to-turn-green".   At the office people are *Waiting for "That-Raise".    At the restaurant people are *Waiting to be "Waited-on".    At the bookstore people are *Waiting for *THAT "New-book".   At the the Shoe store people are *Waiting to see if  "The-Shoe-fits".   at the Doctors office people are *Waiting in the "Waiting-Room".     At the grocery store people are *Waiting to "Check-out".    And it's been said, that folks today,have No-Patience !   WELL,  Excuse me,  just the few illustrations above,  clearly demonstrate, THAT somebody is *Waiting for something !    What are their intentions of asking for Indulgence,  Tolerance  and Unity.    AND,,  don't dare Upset the Apple-Cart !   Down at the Coffee shop people are *Waiting for that  "Java-with-Ummph".    At the corner people are *Waiting to be "Taken-for-a-Ride".   Downtown people are *Waiting for a place to "PARK & WAIT" !      "Pray Tell,,,WHAT ARE  WE WAITING FOR " ?

Panic strikes me
as I realize that
I'm alone

Alone for the first time--
and I don't know
what to do with myself

All these people
Insistent beeping, buzzing,
rolling, shutting

My collective mind
Unraveling
Before my eyes as I have
No one to talk to
to
Connect
with

Floundering
thumbing through
my contacts
to find someone

Anyone

To make me feel wanted,
to feel that my company,
even if through a phone,
is wanted, that I am
desirable

As I fold in on myelf
the Layers turning inward,
eating themselves--

The waitress leans down and asks:

Is everything okay?

I respond, muttering:

mmhm.

It's killing me from the outside in
you know...

But I don't say that

As the layers fold,
the only thing that remains
is a scared little girl
just as frightened as she was
the day she opened her eyes
underwater
and looked around
and realized how eerily
vast and deep the water was...

It still scares her.
It scares me.
And I realize
that the one thing
I can't stand more than
Anything
more than death itself:
is being alone.

Why?

Because when I am
alone with my thoughts
That vastness
that deep ocean of nothingness
bathed in a burning, purified chlorine
Haunts me

Because I cannot fill it,
not even with the deepest of thoughts,
the most vivid sentiments
Cannot satisfy the depths
of the reflective blue against
a slate of unfeeling cement

How do they call you,
those who’ve passed through unmarked
twin doors for the shy
side of one century?

Is it as Nicholas
of Myra,
or of Bari,
or as an unlocated saint,
working wonders in
this home of trim white-stone
block, with three tiers of black-
arches, frowning up at
the merciless
grids behind?

Rows, rows, rows, they float on
glassy, steel-blue oceans,
and these oceans will fall in
violent, cascading, millennial
waves unlike any with foam
caps that once lapped
the rocky coast of lost Lycia--
your see
our maps don’t contain,
and our licit hosannas won’t reach.

Who are they
who pray here?
Bakers, sailors, bankers,
all whose sighs
rise with a torrent of immigrant chants
liaison rafters
fracture in echo-song,
the old coinage that plies your favor.

To which patron can they turn
when your cross crowns not
the work of masons
but one day’s
rubble,
a tongue without a bell,
the charred
relics of unnameable acts?

In bright red candy coated frailty
sailing forward
into a curving infinity
with
     every
          throbbing
                  flap...

Holding a vivid line on eternity
hurtling skyward
behind a box of humanity
make
      every
             heartbeat
                        stop.

Again.

Rough hands used to hold my own,
And still the small bird sings,
They shared my bed and shared my home,
The golden bird death brings,

The shadows seemed so far away ,
Attached to moonlight skin,
Who’d bring it back to where he stay,
And choke the song within,

A golden ray of light there lies,
Within a dreary hell,
Among translucent smog it dies,
A death toll time will tell,

The siren sobs its mournful cry,
Where gentle hands won’t tread,
I pray the little bird may fly,
I unravel like a thread,

I trip and fall a dozen times,
I sob a sirens mournful wail,
A feeling not expressed in rhymes,
I know m mind it will not fail,

A little bird within a cage,
The golden light it now does fade,
Fall to my knees so false is rage,
The bird like me a shade.

I whip myself towards them,
The shadows fall around,
******* forsaken graveyard town,
I scream without a sound.
    
Through blackened dust he does emerge,
Eyes wide shut like broken glass,
My mind and heart within me serge,
I turn to lips where rhyme would pass.

And at my feet lies a broken rose,
Not long without its stem,
Once in sweet compose,
Now in black condemn.

My head upon his coal filled chest,
Feels like my hearts undone,
The lullaby has paused to rest,
And now his song is sung.

A walk way comprised of wooden planks
The stores on each side vacant, deserted
The hand of winter flows with vigor
And the stars are masked by clouds
She walks with me, brown hair, and distant eyes
Her body used and discarded by many men
She saw something in me that others saw not
Though I rejected that which may have manifested love
And I ponder now what might have been
For my perception of love remains obscured
And these moments are but shards

Gen. Lees invasion of the North written by himself—

    In eighteen sixty three, with pomp,
      and mighty swell,
    Me and Jeff’s Confederacy, went
      forth to sack Phil-del,
    The Yankees the got arter us, and
      giv us particular hell,
    And we skedaddled back again,
      And didn’t sack Phil-del.