Far outside
My window,
Through illuminated orange
And tinted black trees,
Rests a park
Bigger than Central.

Housing breathless shadows,
Muskrat tears, and foreign appetites
For postcards, children frolic
Near the spitting fountain of diamonds.

Dust gathers on the homeless,
The dirt junkies, the **** weepers,
The Safeway aisle lurkers.
I nod as they tell me to run faster
Toward an end we both know not where.
My eyes blink and slide down to hide my fear.

There's not enough money
In the world
To change a person.
They'll never forgive themselves.

Spreading their skin on the pavement
Like hot asphalt on a ***-marked street.
There's not enough money in the world
To keep me from being me, I, or you.

Though, on Sundays, when the streets are
Open to the public and the sun shines down,
There is a serene, binding communal air.
I see my brothers and my sisters,
My mothers and fathers.

What is worn is to be judged.
What is said is thought to be understood.
What is given is accepted, perhaps kept or not.
What is experienced, is remembered
For just one day or many to come.

I walk through the park,
Attuned to the bending of trees branches.
I see all there is,
Everything that mankind has to give.
I taste soft, cold air,
And the burning of my lungs in Winter.

Bent, stretched lines of light
Escape in between the pine,
Over the shoulders and heads
Of young women and old men.
I take the last  bus South,
Knowing no one will be there
To meet me.

What was man made is questionable.
I tense when pretenses become acceptable,
Sliding under the table like a giant
Slug.

There I sit, there we sit, there you sit,
Underneath the great invisible moon,
Envious of invisible angels.
Once I hear the crack of leather against wood,
I'm gone; out of sight, of the fight, out of the mind.

Too bad breaths of fresh air
Come only once in a while.

Too long for the toad to jump home
When the wife is pregnant and alone.

Too sad to look the day in the eye
After the next is already knocking on the door.

Too in love to think of anything else
But death.

My park, our park, this park,
Never changes colors - it never ages.
The waters run, the pavements
Smooth, and the wind always free;
Money becomes discolored tree bark
In the face and eyes of mother nature.

What have we built for ourselves this time?
There is so little to say and yet
So much to talk about.
I can't wait for the great silence
Where everything will be equal and one.

Under the ground, beneath the leaves,
A fire is burning for this place: a whining hiss,
a rattling muffler, a scared daughter,
a drought so dry it steals laughter.

I close the door and peer out my window.
Am I in hiding, and if so, from who?
I close the blinds and turn off the lights.
My ceiling is painted off white beige and
There I stage my final bow before curtains.