(I)
People used to light candles to ward off

prophesies such as this. Stopping, each
motherly representative, for 75 seconds 
or less,
to tip match-spark to wax-thread
and hope for the best.

What ceremonial significance now

do we seek for to slow the approach

of what we know is waiting?
Oncoming march of death-knolls and unhappiness

bound up in silence 
where
once we laughed uncensored at and for

the characters who spun throughout
this town, that school, the city, our lives.

All being, understandably, becomes

efficiently replaced with obvious simplicity.

From effortless performances

of what made our lives important

back in childhood years when living
was stable and guaranteed,

now to this mongrel era of constant migration

beckoning....


The familiar is no longer our youth’s
careless summer holidays.

The Familiar is now a land where 
people don’t bother with any ideas

of an ideal existence beyond

what lottery tickets may bring.

Those who inhabit here are

more alerted to the purpose of lighting

coals in winter to shelter the children

and to keep the windows from cracking.

In summer find these same awaiting with

patient ears to heed any advice
which keeps them from going completely insane.

(II)
Go now, away
,begin
your quest, foolish schoolboy.

An entire adolescence’s
 comeuppance is due. 


Time now to seek recompense
for the years you waited

for anything significant to happen. 

Time to seek girls with inviting eyes

and lilting vowels to offer favors to.

Abled with a catalogue of charmed

intoxicants. All softened by
a plentitude of weekdays waking
at three in the afternoon.

(Does “afternoon” exist in layman’s terms? Does

he simply made do with morning, day and night?)

Then on your flight make haste

to ensure your visit merely brief.

Like only one dimension of

your day-persona be a hawk

that delivers messages

back to the ivory towers of

new central HQ, while remaining 

all cloak and whisper.

Messages from where people live

but no longer speak,

as result of an assigned sense

of failure,or complimentary

wrongdoings sought, what sorrow achieves.

Shattered lives, Ending dreams.