Met you first at the edge of town
Where parallel lives converge
Too close to see the reality
Too close to see the merge
Entrained & double stranded
Twice abandoned
Forged in fire
Etched in stone,
Dressed in a serious tone

Divide:
The divine definition
Served over coffee, wine, and repetition
The overhead sign flashed
Standby Alert

Never one to heed the warning
You were looking straight ahead
On an outward bound,
Dopplered red
Journey

The local doesn’t stop there anymore.

The stranger that you were seeing
Detached from all-mighty reason
Feeling tracts of the weatherworn
Like leather shorn
Shattered by resistance  
Battered by time and insistence
A legacy of perfectionism
Bestowed on you by dogmatism
Stirred by criticism
Seen through a prism schism
From standing on your head
Judging yourself upside down
Perspective’s reflection
Ism prison
Makes perfect sense
A hole in groundism


Storied teller without a soundism
Rhythm or such
Downtown, cafed, solitary lunch bunch
Saying no to this, no to that
So comfortable
When there’s something to defend
And there always something to defend

The exonerated accused of insanity
Righteous indignation abomination nation
To the guilty acquitted by reason of sanity
For strategizing one side
Side Lies
Channel changing and codified


The chips are played and unafraid
Free-floating on a reclining cloud
Hovering above the unavowed
Unbuckled crowd
Without blame or explanation


The hand that binds, rewinds
Will eventually set you free


The tracks began to dance
A lazy sideways glance
Carving a figure eight
Keeping time
With a measured gate
Pausing as they crossed
Hand over hand
In infinity seeing speck
An aspect
Dancing on ice
They spin
So without
So within
Pirouette going around and around
Everyone stepped aside
Later they all took a side

“Never saw it coming.

You know, he never should have left.

Yes but, how do you know it was him?

I heard she was bereft.”

The moment was tenuous
Always slipping from grasp
Always a handout for help
Always a mask
The mask it
Fell from where it was hanging and
Broke in half              
You were off autopilot
Without a staff


Yes, to whatever you say
I’m that way
You must first introduce yourself
Forgive yourself
For all the isms’
They were never ever you
The isms aren’t all bad
They just embody the essence
Of all that is had.