Like a stone from home into night I am cast,
My need for a story is certainly vast.
Thus fleet are my feet as I take to the street,
To implore the lore of ev’ry thing that I meet.

My interest is incentive to know,
Where from rocks roll, how the grass doth grow,
When so many things do cross this sod?
And who dared on what dirt trod?

The unbeaten trails entail many tales,
Of travails against which mine merely pale.
How came you here, oh cairns and stalks?
Confide you in me, I swear I’ll not balk.

For I as brave sentinels regard you all,
Though I know time will yet see your downfall.
And know I better that the ******* of prattle,
Will for their own gain seek thee to embattle.

Such cowards their duty for continuity botch,
Not showing their knowing that it is your watch
Holds the stars in the sky, for our fates are all married.
And thus ours must follow, when all you are buried.

Speak to me then, let heard be your pleas,
For I am as a Lorax, speaker for the trees.
And for the ground that holds them fast,
Loving their present, saving future, knowing past.

We are creatures of habit, believe this is true.
For we are the sum of the things that we do.
So if I adopt the thousand yard stare,
Who will I be but the mask that I wear?

What would I be but the role that I act?
A remorseless killer, devoid of tact,
For fear that through kindness his weakness will show,
So the spaces between him and others would grow,

As if to match the point of his focus.
His thoughts all bearing an inward locus.
His life desolate, its body cold,
Loving no one, and growing old.

Just as well I could try on a charming smile,
The kind that says, “Sit down, stay a while.”
And as with a fire, others would find it meet,
To huddle around me and draw on my heat.

Assuming that there was some magic within,
Causing my cheeks defy gravity with a grin,
As if to propagate life’s paradox,
Who with ironical grin entropy mocks,

As a river flowing against an eddy,
Removing its basis when conditions are ready.
This in mind, clever Judases would know,
That through my kindness, my weakness would show.

So which should I wear, Thalia, Melpomene,
Exists there a mean between your extremes?
Whichever the case, this much we should trust:
That what we do without urging, speaks most of us.

A place for everything and everything in its place
I say to you on the subject of asylum inmates
Washing their hair with hand soap,
Driving by in our heated car on winter tires,
With a trunk full of tools, smelling of bleach.

“Where are we going?” I ask,
As a road bump rollicks our persons.
“A place…” you begin to say, knowing I’ll finish the rest.

The blurred landscape, the transition from place
To place makes me think of more things and places.
The poor in the streets for trusting the rich, served Right,
Denizens of New Orleans who live on the brink
The tools in the trunk, beginning to stink--

Part of me wants to see the truth before it’s too late,
And the other knows our destination.
For the tools trusted me, as I do you,
Yet there is no other place for me.