I went to sleep in a slipstream
Woke to a world gone mad
Red ran like a river down barren streets
All was upside down
The sky was a seamless grey
People were black and white
Lost in an old time movie
The sight filled me with fright

I heard a hideous laughter
A one eyed magician poked me straight
Pick a card, he said
Pick a card or forever exist in exile
before it is all too late...

Edgar Allen settled evenings in the room at the rear
at a desk by the window where he could hear
breeze-rustled sycamore leaves sleeping
behind the neighbor’s house next door

through night’s florescent blue moon light,
its mist through low leaden clouds
he imagined the phantom he named Lenore,
and remembered lost Annabelle Lee  
amore he'd left laid alone aside a blackened sea

hers, the voice of a tree speaking, hushed,
like distant waves rushed upon shore,
faintly whispering heart-secrets
the ardent couldn’t keep evermore

was it she who sighed with love’s breathless lips
to flicker the flame of a tortured oil lamp’s light
the words born laboring children
with pen put in service to cover past rent,
refill an empty flask of verdant absinthe
for a nine-dollar-half-column poem -
fodder for fickle romantics to tear over
before a performance of Bellini’s new Norma

hardened, our modern hearts
fattened on diets of swollen bellies
that belie the dour misery of starving
they’ve grown sclerotic and cynical,
hungry for suffering flavored substantial -
a greasy disaster to stain the paper wrapper
enclosing depths of the human condition


sophisticates, we dismissed puerile appetite
for honeyed songs of longing,
the ornamented confections of jealous angels
old drunken poets sang
until dark full comes, alone, and we’re small again

then shadows still speak to starry skies
and fairy tales may come alive
to suspend belief with secret dreams
of the dear, lost Annabelle Lee

These tears are for you
---here let me gather them
I shall bead then together
a necklace of salty regret
and bitter mutterings.

No, no let me...
I shall tie them tight around your neck
let them hang out of reverence
for the heart you let shatter
from your overturned palm.

Morning woke to a sky cloaked in white
as mist rose, smoky, from snow
now shedding its innocence
for smoldering, bent cigarettes
left to extinguish themselves overnight

Infinite blue was lost under cover,
down shroud erasing each page
of tales that reveries replayed,
myths of forever and love
rubbed away in a new day's color

Haze bound dreamers by cords of reason,  
who surrendered their searches
in surges of x-rays weighed
for presence of a life’s tuned waves
to prove existence an ancient season

Like a fragrance they vaguely remember,
confusing a vapor trace  
painted nostalgic - the face,
arching brow, how soft her hand -
and wished magic had lasted one more hour

in the city where they rise now,
weeds waist high in summer times,
aglitter under with still-luxuriant diamonds
when the sun shines just so,
even in winter
before lost under snow

all that's left of the window
from which a sweet Juliet surveyed prospects
playing touch football below in the street,
pausing gridiron glories for passing cars
or ladies with bags of groceries in arm

the broken tooth of the block,
just a lot, brick and rock
packed hard
under metal treads of reaping machines,
attracting a profane collection
of neighbors’ wind-blown refuse
to which none will lay claim today

the lovely vanished,
as if her gaze west as sun set
finally pulled her away through clear panes,
one life rejected limited, mundane
and left lifeless a cradle to crumble

none here remember her
every face changed, new as the years
or aged by insults of time and moved on -
nor she the stoop, once so sturdy and safe;
an ancient sycamore's welcome embrace,
cool every August,
would last forever
to the innocent mind of a child

and the woman forgot the crack
in the cemented back yard
where ants lived -
a girl once stared for hours
as they harvested
a crust of sandwich
hidden from the raucous street,
the heat of the sun,

which she decided to follow to its glorious end,
leaving behind a field fallow
where ants,
oblivious to a world that had changed,
fend, still, for a meal
in their broken concrete

i've come here to commit the quivering weak,
feeding scurrying beasts more reeking fodder
sentimental flesh no match for their razor sharp teeth
banging *** lids, stomping feet
hoping that rats near, feasting
on scraps and detritus will scatter amid bluster
before eyes dare to open - perhaps catch sight of things
that might scare us
our cans, never closed -
left always ajar, an offering of communion
lest they grow too hungry
gnaw through walls and come inside,
share foie gras with guests I'd hoped to impress
now seated and dining behind;
disgust them in sights of sins best hidden out back in the darkness
and leave fine linens soiled with meals yet digested

his body's been disposed before,
innocent specter resurrected by morning to fog up the mirror
reciting novenas as beads of his rosary roll in counts down its surface
never suspecting fate that awaits as night falls once more
daytime is easier, drowning sound
from his voice in symphonies of piano and strings
Mozart's or Mahler's  -
other things of distraction...
that aren't there to hide in when
sun fades and sleep, again, tries to invade
his figure repudiated, extracted
from a psyche dissected years ago, like a tumor threatening to grow
swallow the Now from which time's made.
in pretense of conversion for the moment,  i take his hand and lead him -
more fresh meat for the rodents
(even saints sometimes lie when they don't like the answers - they atone deception later)
he still cries when I leave him alone at the altar

once
a shaman shaking dried heads tied to a stick with palm leaves
promised mysterious potions that would strengthen the weak
reciting magical incantations expected to exorcise spirits within
for all those who believed
practicing his science of faith or faith in his science
for clients lined up at the door,
seeking doses of hope that he sold them -  returning each week for some more
but for those apostate, left to stare in the glare of florescent
humors never found balance in bloodletting
lancet nor leaches
the weakness of faithless was in never tasting the cure
or trusting tears could ever be wiped away by ice picks
he ****** deep in eye sockets, the sweet lies he told us
holes left in the soul could never filled by blue pills -
they couldn't reach there

missionaries positioned their ways
through that breach,
preaching a new theology requiring surrender
of my reliquary of cherished memories
as precondition for salvation,
discarding polished bones i'd kissed and prayed over:

Her precious pink t-shirt, coil of hair still stuck there,
though having no root it could never be proved
from whom it was groomed,
it was article of faith - who could dare question it;

the used ticket stub with date imprinted
indicating temporal evidence that
once something true existed
that i, too, felt part of;

words bound in a covenant sent by saints
in small pieces of lavender-scented mail
though having waited so long
faith in The Coming had wasted
and perfume, long ago, faded to imagination

and so, a soul abandoned all hope of redemption

a red rose rendered in oils
expressing devotion for eternity lost meaning
when it withered
watered by hope, as it was and forgotten;
our castle built on clouds came tumbling to the ground
when we looked up, stared at the sky;
the permanent brilliance of diamonds become mere stones in the garden
when sown from a window on high -
wealth for worms to covet and fight over,
though the fool still knelt to sift soil through his fingers
in search of lost sacrament
finally planting his hope
in the many graves that he'd made
otherwise, for forsaken,
faith is just hope not yet ready to die

then, there's the weak one i'll face in the morning,
likely still worshiping old bones and reciting from memory his ancient liturgy
when i let it, a cacophony of questions
can echo about paths never taken, and why some vows, not others;
and i wonder if there's a heaven for heathens when clocks cease their ticking
off nows that i try to live in

One Golden heart.
Two Forest fires.
Three Dull arrows.
Four Green blades of grass.
Five Stolen looks.
Six Joking sighs.
Seven Sad moments.
Eight Hours of agony.
Nine Late steps.
Ten Uncertain metaphors.

My dog carries

the chill of winter

beaded on her coat.