What genius evening keeps secret and moribund...

His foot falls echo the chill of November deep
Tapping, clapping, wrapping
His man heavy fragility in wool

How distant and suddenly wide is the night.

What shrewd skills fear casts--a mask,
That evening keeps him wary, attentive as wax,
For Shadows shed no comfort for this lamb,

His rhythm once lord of the dance.

Pulsing toes as eyes flash to every creak, whispers;
The Depth of sightlessness made paranoid
by twisted twilight shapes, shifting, nerves frozen with haste…

His weakness, not knowing, a pallid winter on his face.

Even now the slow climb upon his back
Carried by the slip of a breeze laying waste,
A soundtrack of dead leaves and black.

His foot falls stomping to clash and map
A stroll as reality saves nothing sincere, when fear
Deepens in his bones resolve to panic...

What genius a weapon: dark flights of fancy

And the conditioning of youth to preconceive,
Strange and delicate spaces between the ears
Defeated before finding a sure foot

Before reaching a well lit street
Familiar and familial suburbs of a mind
Diminished by the subterfuge of fear…

His foot falls turn a corner
And the sound of concrete and conflict
Disappear…




SUBTERFUGE