I wanted to be witty and sly
or dare I say without trepidation
trailer park brilliant and loose
as they stood forlorned and tired
soaking in the rain before me
but I had little or close to nothing at all.

The look on those grey faces
heavily stunned, vacant and lost
almost as if the very eye itself
were pacing down the hallway alone
as if things were registering
without having registered at all.

Reaching down deep and wide
farther, broader and well beyond
the sea of black in my heart at the time
I gathered and mustered at a very low decibel
the only few words or thoughts
electable on such a grave night.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the Low Lands.
I… Cornelius Appleton, bid you good night!”

Just fifteen words spoken out loud
on the pier that night above the water
heard by those in and of the crowd
each and every word offered insincerely
against little or no resistance at all
from the natives, their neighbors and kin.

Then turning I left- no faster then normal
going, never to return in time or space
or to be heard from again in truth
hence forth just a shadow of a thought
of a man once there and in the know...
now gone without explanation or conclusion.

However, during the shifting doldrums of many nights
awakening- from the eternal springs of sleep
I see those faces and I hear their thoughts
and I recollect the dreams they had- of tomorrow
because it was I who lit them into fire
then smiled as they rose away in smoke.

In the bitter end when the day closed
neither I nor they in any way, fashion or shape
were any more grandiose, evolved or pleased
for having run the race  that we all ran together
but that race was run, it’s true and it’s in the books
perhaps in the future- we can run it again.