Night descends with shadows deep,
In the silence, fears start to creep.
Grim visions fill the midnight air,
Haunting whispers everywhere.
Terrors rise from the mind's dark sea,
Monsters born of anxiety.
As the hours slowly pass,
Restless dreams in a murky glass.
Eventually, dawn will break.

she's beautiful the way she flies
with time upon her wings
a sussurus of sand elapsing
a due date for heartstrings

she had a wicked kind of motion,
a cold beauty
with the radiance of a sunset dying.

Jack had seen her,
had seen her walking
the sidewalks and streets
that are too dark for dreaming,

the acne scars on her cheeks
had left faded marks,
with her wolf spirit longing
to be unchained.

the sudden rain drumming on the roof of the car.

and Jack was no stranger to sad streets,
the sidewalks and tenement caves,
strangers in a crowd laughing.

his sad eyes, two black eyes,
another fight,
he looked like a raccoon.

he came around the car
as she knew he would,
took her in his arms,
kissed her and when he withdrew
from the kiss
she felt his warm breath.

Melissa was from Montana,
had left her husband.

just one more nightmare to try
and understand
and so Jack didn't want to know, why,
He didn't ask

and she is the one women
that never took the smile
from his face
and some loves forever to ring true.

2 souls in the fire.
one heart.

As rose begins to light the skies,
Dew'd petals wake from sleep,
As songs of thrush in air arise,
'Midst swallows' swoop and leap,

In that beauty, harsh and hard,
A canard's tail slithers,
A falsehood dressed in truth all marred,
A golden poppy withered,

And shadows grow from day to night,
Crushing love's embrace,
And darkness smothers beacons bright,
The light of Divine Face.

A soft snow scurries across the town,
Drowning out the bright lights.
A soft darkness descends,
And the day stretches in slivers,
From the clouds.

And I see none of it,
I'm too focused on you.

Wind kissed souls,
at midnight.

World move below,
from top it glow.

Stars cover the sky,
so high,
the scene made,
my heart so shy.

~
The boys of summer.

Johnny once sat under the bleachers, the scar on his tongue, a reminder of the time he bit it after falling from a treehouse. A sack full of yesterday's news in a red wagon, the first and last clues.

Eugene ... the other kid who dropped out of sight on Sunday morning, now the evening edition; now a black spot on the sun.

Why the two-year gap?

Departures and landfalls. But no explanations.

Mom and Dad never comfortable peering into the camera lens. Big brother breathing out vapors until something sparks and all
the old questions came back.

A detective's paradox. No bone. No fragment. No evidence. In his home garage hangs a poster of Eugene to remind him every day.

-- for Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin
~