A governor it was proclaimed this time,
When all who would come seeking in New Hampshire
Ancestral memories might come together.
And those of the name Stark gathered in Bow,
A rock-strewn town where farming has fallen off,
And sprout-lands flourish where the axe has gone.
Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a by-road
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.
They were at Bow, but that was not enough:
Nothing would do but they must fix a day
To stand together on the crater’s verge
That turned them on the world, and try to fathom
The past and get some strangeness out of it.
But rain spoiled all. The day began uncertain,
With clouds low trailing and moments of rain that misted.
The young folk held some hope out to each other
Till well toward noon when the storm settled down
With a swish in the grass. “What if the others
Are there,” they said. “It isn’t going to rain.”
Only one from a farm not far away
Strolled thither, not expecting he would find
Anyone else, but out of idleness.
One, and one other, yes, for there were two.
The second round the curving hillside road
Was a girl; and she halted some way off
To reconnoitre, and then made up her mind
At least to pass by and see who he was,
And perhaps hear some word about the weather.
This was some Stark she didn’t know. He nodded.
“No fête to-day,” he said.

“It looks that way.”
She swept the heavens, turning on her heel.
“I only idled down.”

“I idled down.”

Provision there had been for just such meeting
Of stranger cousins, in a family tree
Drawn on a sort of passport with the branch
Of the one bearing it done in detail—
Some zealous one’s laborious device.
She made a sudden movement toward her bodice,
As one who clasps her heart. They laughed together.
“Stark?” he inquired. “No matter for the proof.”

“Yes, Stark. And you?”

“I’m Stark.” He drew his passport.

“You know we might not be and still be cousins:
The town is full of Chases, Lowes, and Baileys,
All claiming some priority in Starkness.
My mother was a Lane, yet might have married
Anyone upon earth and still her children
Would have been Starks, and doubtless here to-day.”

“You riddle with your genealogy
Like a Viola. I don’t follow you.”

“I only mean my mother was a Stark
Several times over, and by marrying father
No more than brought us back into the name.”

“One ought not to be thrown into confusion
By a plain statement of relationship,
But I own what you say makes my head spin.
You take my card—you seem so good at such things—
And see if you can reckon our cousinship.
Why not take seats here on the cellar wall
And dangle feet among the raspberry vines?”

“Under the shelter of the family tree.”

“Just so—that ought to be enough protection.”

“Not from the rain. I think it’s going to rain.”

“It’s raining.”

“No, it’s misting; let’s be fair.
Does the rain seem to you to cool the eyes?”

The situation was like this: the road
Bowed outward on the mountain half-way up,
And disappeared and ended not far off.
No one went home that way. The only house
Beyond where they were was a shattered seedpod.
And below roared a brook hidden in trees,
The sound of which was silence for the place.
This he sat listening to till she gave judgment.

“On father’s side, it seems, we’re—let me see——”

“Don’t be too technical.—You have three cards.”

“Four cards, one yours, three mine, one for each branch
Of the Stark family I’m a member of.”

“D’you know a person so related to herself
Is supposed to be mad.”

“I may be mad.”

“You look so, sitting out here in the rain
Studying genealogy with me
You never saw before. What will we come to
With all this pride of ancestry, we Yankees?
I think we’re all mad. Tell me why we’re here
Drawn into town about this cellar hole
Like wild geese on a lake before a storm?
What do we see in such a hole, I wonder.”

“The Indians had a myth of Chicamoztoc,
Which means The Seven Caves that We Came out of.
This is the pit from which we Starks were digged.”

“You must be learned. That’s what you see in it?”

“And what do you see?”

“Yes, what do I see?
First let me look. I see raspberry vines——”

“Oh, if you’re going to use your eyes, just hear
What I see. It’s a little, little boy,
As pale and dim as a match flame in the sun;
He’s groping in the cellar after jam,
He thinks it’s dark and it’s flooded with daylight.”

“He’s nothing. Listen. When I lean like this
I can make out old Grandsir Stark distinctly,—
With his pipe in his mouth and his brown jug—
Bless you, it isn’t Grandsir Stark, it’s Granny,
But the pipe’s there and smoking and the jug.
She’s after cider, the old girl, she’s thirsty;
Here’s hoping she gets her drink and gets out safely.”

“Tell me about her. Does she look like me?”

“She should, shouldn’t she, you’re so many times
Over descended from her. I believe
She does look like you. Stay the way you are.
The nose is just the same, and so’s the chin—
Making allowance, making due allowance.”

“You poor, dear, great, great, great, great Granny!”

“See that you get her greatness right. Don’t stint her.”

“Yes, it’s important, though you think it isn’t.
I won’t be teased. But see how wet I am.”

“Yes, you must go; we can’t stay here for ever.
But wait until I give you a hand up.
A bead of silver water more or less
Strung on your hair won’t hurt your summer looks.
I wanted to try something with the noise
That the brook raises in the empty valley.
We have seen visions—now consult the voices.
Something I must have learned riding in trains
When I was young. I used the roar
To set the voices speaking out of it,
Speaking or singing, and the band-music playing.
Perhaps you have the art of what I mean.
I’ve never listened in among the sounds
That a brook makes in such a wild descent.
It ought to give a purer oracle.”

“It’s as you throw a picture on a screen:
The meaning of it all is out of you;
The voices give you what you wish to hear.”

“Strangely, it’s anything they wish to give.”

“Then I don’t know. It must be strange enough.
I wonder if it’s not your make-believe.
What do you think you’re like to hear to-day?”

“From the sense of our having been together—
But why take time for what I’m like to hear?
I’ll tell you what the voices really say.
You will do very well right where you are
A little longer. I mustn’t feel too hurried,
Or I can’t give myself to hear the voices.”

“Is this some trance you are withdrawing into?”

“You must be very still; you mustn’t talk.”

“I’ll hardly breathe.”

“The voices seem to say——”

“I’m waiting.”

“Don’t! The voices seem to say:
Call her Nausicaa, the unafraid
Of an acquaintance made adventurously.”

“I let you say that—on consideration.”

“I don’t see very well how you can help it.
You want the truth. I speak but by the voices.
You see they know I haven’t had your name,
Though what a name should matter between us——”

“I shall suspect——”

“Be good. The voices say:
Call her Nausicaa, and take a timber
That you shall find lies in the cellar charred
Among the raspberries, and hew and shape it
For a door-sill or other corner piece
In a new cottage on the ancient spot.
The life is not yet all gone out of it.
And come and make your summer dwelling here,
And perhaps she will come, still unafraid,
And sit before you in the open door
With flowers in her lap until they fade,
But not come in across the sacred sill——”

“I wonder where your oracle is tending.
You can see that there’s something wrong with it,
Or it would speak in dialect. Whose voice
Does it purport to speak in? Not old Grandsir’s
Nor Granny’s, surely. Call up one of them.
They have best right to be heard in this place.”

“You seem so partial to our great-grandmother
(Nine times removed. Correct me if I err.)
You will be likely to regard as sacred
Anything she may say. But let me warn you,
Folks in her day were given to plain speaking.
You think you’d best tempt her at such a time?”

“It rests with us always to cut her off.”

“Well then, it’s Granny speaking: ‘I dunnow!
Mebbe I’m wrong to take it as I do.
There ain’t no names quite like the old ones though,
Nor never will be to my way of thinking.
One mustn’t bear too ******* the new comers,
But there’s a dite too many of them for comfort.
I should feel easier if I could see
More of the salt wherewith they’re to be salted.
Son, you do as you’re told! You take the timber—
It’s as sound as the day when it was cut—
And begin over——’ There, she’d better stop.
You can see what is troubling Granny, though.
But don’t you think we sometimes make too much
Of the old stock? What counts is the ideals,
And those will bear some keeping still about.”

“I can see we are going to be good friends.”

“I like your ‘going to be.’ You said just now
It’s going to rain.”

“I know, and it was raining.
I let you say all that. But I must go now.”

“You let me say it? on consideration?
How shall we say good-bye in such a case?”

“How shall we?”

“Will you leave the way to me?”

“No, I don’t trust your eyes. You’ve said enough.
Now give me your hand up.—Pick me that flower.”

“Where shall we meet again?”

“Nowhere but here
Once more before we meet elsewhere.”

“In rain?”

“It ought to be in rain. Sometime in rain.
In rain to-morrow, shall we, if it rains?
But if we must, in sunshine.” So she went.

Idle time fills the killers mind with

Polluting thoughts of a different kind.

The remnants of a feeling left behind

Reminding him of a love he’ll never find…

There are fleeting patches of light
Within my confused and idled mind
What once was abundant with mercy
Has now presently been confined
I find myself
Picturing the worst within the frame
Yet not wishing to let those wild thoughts
Go about Untamed

Its like a game you play by yourself
When all the lights are out
In the dark without a spark
And no one to call for help
Is this the conflict of a broken promise
Or simply present tense
Am I justified within my suspense
Or should I rather...
Attempt to condense

Even though this makes sense
It could easily be that or the other
Don't get me started on the similarities
Between interactions happening
With she
And my distant mother

I don't wish to smother her
Only desire my peace of mind
I'm determined to soothe the fire
Before leaving everything behind

I don't want to call you a liar
But its where I find myself treading
Like that one event suddenly made a dent
And fissures started spreading
Like every last thing could be a deception
Manifesting what I believe
And I don't think I'll really get to know
Is it you
Or is it me?

Bes



It's high midnight and I'm up to my old tricks again.
Bes came by my apartment last night, ostensibly to see why I've stopped answering everyone's calls but harboring more ulterior motives than a presidential charity event. I let her in, mumbling some vague, ******* excuse about how I'd simply been busy. She stood in my living room, her hands demurely folded in front of her as her eyes swept the scene, a quick appraising glance that took in the leaning towers of paper and rows of empty bottles, the rings under my eyes and the cheeks grizzled with god knows how many days of growth, and when at last they met mine they seemed to ask what exactly it was that I had been busy doing. Her lips said no such thing though, held in check either by innate tact or single-minded purpose. Instead she smiled, that old, slanting smile that was more a twitching of her cheeks than an actual moving of her lips, and asked if I liked her dress. It was the first time that I'd seen her dressed in anything but jeans, and the change was as unexpected as it was becoming. The dress was short, black, simple and elegant in its simplicity. In the expected places it clung to her curves and invited you to do the same, but elsewhere it hung in loose folds, folds so deep that she seemed almost lost in them, and when you did catch a glimpse of her body -the delicate line of her collarbone, the thin ridge of a rib- the force of the contrast struck home with calculated, bewildering power. She looked incredibly fragile yet fraught with danger, like broken glass swaddled in a black flag. I gave her an exaggerated once-over, then said, "Do you really need me to answer that?" She laughed, her voice high and breathy, and dropped me a theatrical curtsy. "What's the occasion?" Her eyes narrowed, and the ghost of a smile twitched its way back onto her face.
"We're going out tonight."
"We are? And why are we doing that?"
"It's ladies' night at Stoa, and that means free drinks."
"Free drinks for you, kiddo. I doubt that I could pass as a lady, even in that ****-hole."
"For me, yes. But if I were to get those free drinks and then decide that I didn't want them, well, what would happen to them? It would be wrong just to waste them, after all. I suppose I should have to give them away, perhaps to a good friend?"
"If you should change your mind." I said flatly.
"Of course. Woman's prerogative, you know."
"Are you trying to bribe me with free liquor?"
"Well, if that isn't enough I could always throw in a 'please'. Limited time offer, though, non-negotiable and nontransferable."
"Unlike the drinks, you mean."
"Rules are like bodies; they aren't meant to be be broken, but sometimes it's fun to see just how far you can stretch them."
"Far be it from me to tell a pretty girl no when she says please."
"Pleeaazzee?" She batted her eyelashes at me, lower lip stuck out in a burlesque pout.
"Okay."
"Put on a fresh shirt and grab your coat, I'll get a cab."
"Yes'm," I said, snapping off a quick salute before about-facing toward my bedroom. She laughed again as she left, the soft chuckles punctuated by the click of her heels on the concrete steps outside. I dressed quickly, taking roughly three minutes to apply fresh deodorant, sniff-test and shrug my way into a shirt with marginally less wrinkles than your average nursing home and grab my keys. I walked out the front door to find Bes ready and waiting for me, having snared a cab with the same brisk efficiency with which she had beguiled me into escorting her. She stood at the curb, toe of one black pump tapping impatiently as the taxi idled next to her, engine panting like some exotic animal brought to heel. The ride there was silent. The cabbie was one of those garrulous specimens of his trade who seem always to have something to offer his customers in addition to the transportation for which they had paid; some tidbit of folksy wisdom, or a sage prediction of the weather, no doubt buttressed with countless examples from the days of yore. He brought out several of these chestnuts for us, but after a few failed gambits even he lapsed into what for him must have passed for a taciturn state, contenting himself with humming along to the radio, albeit loudly. He had sloughed tunelessly through several songs and a commercial break by the time we arrived, and had begun to sing under his breath, apparently unaware that he was doing so. This unwitting serenade had been steadily growing in volume, and he was working himself into a rather heartfelt rendition of Black Velvet as we disembarked.
It was just past eleven, relatively early for a nightclub, but the line was already stretched ten yards from the door. It wound around the side of the building, surprising me in spite of myself. I really hadn't been out in a while, and had forgotten all about waiting outside, that desultory purgatorial period where people shifted restlessly from foot to foot and chain-smoked, anxious for admittance, though in all likelihood less concerned with being able to dance or mingle (which they could have probably done just as well out here) than they were with losing the buzz they had brought with them. Some of the people had clustered into loose groups and those who had looked more sanguine, almost serene, and no doubt there were a few water bottles filled with ***** stashed in their purses and jacket pockets. I started toward the corner, intending to join the rest of the sad-sacks at the back of the line, but Bes grabbed my arm, giving me a slight shake of her head. She walked directly toward the entrance, deftly sidestepping the little pockets of people and putting on a smile of almost predatory brilliance. She sauntered up to the bouncer posted at the door, one of any number of interchangeable drones whose charge is to prevent just such flouting of protocol as she undoubtedly had in mind. She said something to him and he shook his head. She spoke again, raising up on tip-toe and looking directly into his eyes, and when she spread her hands in a comely now-do-you-see gesture he looked around furtively then nodded. She waved a hand at me and he nodded again, though more apprehensively than at first, and the hand pointed in my direction now wiggled its fingers in a come-hither gesture. I walked up and looked a question at her but she merely shook her head again, though this one was accompanied by a slight smile that said nothing and hinted at everything. She took my hand, dragging me forward like a she-wolf dragging a rabbit into her den, and as we passed into the club she favored the sentry with another smile, so warm that I could have sworn I saw him blush.
The interior was dark, cavernous and redolent of a thousand mingled perfumes, a heady, dizzying blend spiced here and there with the dank odor of marijuana. As soon as we were past the bouncer, Bes stopped and pivoted on her toes like a ballerina, spinning so quickly that I almost stumbled into her. She said something to me then, but despite the sudden and shocking proximity of her body to my own her voice was lost in the car crash of voices from the dance floorahead. I cupped a hand to my ear in the commonly understood signal for deafness, and she responded by cocking her head at a questioning angle and forming an elongated y with her thumb and pinky finger, tilting them toward her lips in the universal gesture for drinks. I nodded my assent and she took my hand again, pressing it gently as she threaded her way through the tumult of writhing flesh on the dance floor. We found seats in the corner of the bar, the one place where you could actually sit with your back to the wall instead of the rest of the club, a place that I privately thought of as Paranoiac's Cove. I dug out my pack of Lucky's and set to work on trying to find my lighter as she flitted away, returning moments later with a pair of highball glasses, each filled to the brim with a curiously green concoction that was so bright that it seemed almost as though the glass was filled with liquid neon. She handed me one, her fingers momentarily brushing mine as I accepted it, visions of the cauldron from Macbeth flashing briefly through my mind. That smile twisted its way onto her face again as she offered a silent toast, raising her glass toward me with an oddly solemn gesture. I raised mine in return, noticing the way her eyes sparkled in the shadows, green and impossibly bright, almost lambent, bright like the drink though her eyes were a deeper, truer green, closer to jade than to the grassy color we held in our hands. We touched their rims together, the clink almost inaudible in the howling bedlam of the club. She threw her drink back at a single draught, surprising me into a laugh and I followed suit, barely tasting the liquor as it ran down my throat. What I did taste was a rather poor attempt at artificial apple, cloying and somehow thick, like melted jolly ranchers. It was saccharine sweet yet bitter, a harsh undertone that matched the crisp tang of a real granny smith about as well as the sweetness did, which is to say not at all. Not that this bothered me; alcohol and bitterness have always gone well together for me.
She leaned over to me, fingertips resting lightly on my shoulder, breath tickling confidentially in my ear as she asked, "Dance with me?"
I demurred, not bothering to waste words but simply waiting until she pulled back to look at me and then shaking my head. She didn't lean in again, catching my eyes instead and mouthing the word with an exaggerated care that was almost comical. "Okay." She hesitated momentarily before adding, "Maybe later." She didn't wait for a response, instead sliding off her stool with easy, doe-like grace and disappeared into the throng. I stayed at the bar for some time, an hour perhaps, drinking steadily and watching the growing chagrin of the woman behind it as she realized that I had not intention of tipping her no matter how drunk I got. Bes reappeared periodically, staying long enough to grab each of us a free shot and steal one of my cigarettes before vanishing again. I whiled away the time by counting the necklaces that came bobbing and heaving up to the bar. The vast majority were crucifixes, their forms and sizes as varied as those of their bearers, but there was a smattering of other ikons as well; Celtic knots and stars of david, pentacles and hammers, and once, nestled incongruously in the ample and expertly showcased cleavage of its wearer, a crescent moon and star. The owner of that particular pendant also happened to clutch a drink in one hand, and while it may have been a shirly temple or club soda, the glassy eyes above it and the boneless, disjointed movements that arm described in the air spoke to a more potent brew. I wondered what they meant to the people who wear them, those chains of devotion donned voluntarily. A symbol of their faith, they would probably say, though it's a faith betrayed by virtually every action that they take, and if there's one thing that I've learned about people it's that their vows and promises may be lies, but their betrayals never are. Even a virtuous act, an act of unequivocal good in the face of overwhelming temptation, even that can be a lie. It is concealment, a denial of the temptation, of its reality, of the fact that the desire for what tempts us exists. But in betrayal, in succumbing to temptation, people reveal themselves, for they are true to their desire and desire is the most accurate mirror, the truest reflection of who we are. Most people wear masks to cloud that mirror, false faces that sometimes fool everyone and sometimes fool no-one. But truth always asserts itself and so most people betray; others, causes, even themselves. But even the betrayal of self is also an act of honesty, the final acknowledgement of who we really are.
There was a time, of course, when these signs and symbols of faith were a business of deadly seriousness, when their betrayal would have begotten swift and sure punishment, when the mere display of one's allegiance was both a pledge and a challenge, but no longer. Now they are carried as casually as their wearers carry the name of some obscure fashion designer on their underwear, and given the reverent attention paid to the latter and their blasé hypocrisy regarding the former, one has to wonder which is really more important to them. Yet the symbols persist even when the meaning has been forgotten, and the majority still carry signs of fealty formed from counterfeit gold and beaten nickel, sigils that flash quicksilver in the strobing lights, leading the way like the wooden maidens which adorn the prows of ships. I used to have one of them, you know, a rough loop of rawhide the carried three little trinkets, a bunny a book and a small golden heart. It's gone now, of course, and fittingly so, the heart having fallen after the bunny down the rabbit-hole, and the book remaining unwritten, though I suppose if your reading this, that if these disjointed ramblings ever manage to make it onto the printed page, refugees finally transplanted from the wilted notebooks or the cocktail napkins that I even now sit scribbling madly on, it has been written after all and you're reading it. You poor *******.
I realized my thoughts were drifting, meandering on their own down paths that I have expressly forbidden them to tread, rambling like unsupervised children in an amusement park at sundown. I gathered them up, scolding them, trying to exert some authority in my own mind, telling myself to just take a deep breath and shake it off. I can't though, and for once it's not because I can't quiet the thoughts but because I can't seem to take a breath that is deep enough. I realized that I was panting, well nigh hyperventilating, my breath coming in quick, shallow gasps that seem to crystallize in my longs like spun glass. I take stock of myself, trying to assure myself that I'm not going to have a heart attack or a ******* stroke, noting with some alarm that my hands are shaking and my vision has narrowed into a twisting, undulating tunnel. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, the darkness behind my eyelids streaked with purple and red, and gradually I became aware that those explosions of color are rhythmic, recurrent. They happened not with the pounding of my heart, as I would have expected, but in time with the music, sunbursts of color appearing each time the bass kicked. The panic diminished, replaced by curiosity, and I realized that without the shrill yammering of panic in my ear and the terror of impending death in my mind, the combined sensations are not only pleasant, but oddly familiar. It's then that I realized what happened, belatedly doing the mental arithmetic and realizing that unexpected invitation, the free drinks and the first's oddly bitter taste, the secretive smile with which it was delivered, that it all added up to a single thing. She drugged me, of course, spiked my drink with something and I didn't even notice, naive as a sorority pledge at a keg party, and oh **** was I high. I stayed at the bar, knowing from hard experience that there was no sense in fighting it, and so giving in to it. If you can't put out the fire you might as well feed it, feed it all that you can, because the sooner the fuel runs out the sooner the fire dies. So I stayed there, focusing on my breathing and letting my thoughts spiral out, catching the waves in my head as they rose and fell, finally learning to float on their crests, in some semblance of control. Calmer now, I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one, the process taking an eternity, empires rising and falling in the time between the moment when the spark caught and the flame exploded into life and the one when it reached my lucky. I breathed out a plume of smoke, a pillar of cloud that also seemed to go on forever, and as it cleared there was Bes, materializing out of the smoke like a Cheshire cat.
"Ready to dance?"
I looked at her, unable to speak for a moment, not the drug this time but something entirely, a thing that came surging up from some unsounded depth within me and caught in my throat, because when I looked in her eyes, wide and wet with excitement, her pupils telescoped into pinpricks that told me she was in the grip of the same I saw myself. Because she was looking at me the way I looked

Frightful abilities were pressured into
responses as the computer children
failed at hitherto reliable performance.
This was a description of the synchronous
effect brought into the shudder with a
catch in the breath of the mother,

and written by frenetic action that
destroyed the logical sequence of requests
presented by the mouse and the typing keys.

As directed through an esoteric process of
recovery, the minds of the device reoriented,
again attaining the ability to perform simple
and repetitive tasks as obliged by designated

prompts.  There was no certainty this was not
related to the telephone connection which
picked thinking out of the air like a television
receiving a network broadcast.  In the same

way, the exhaust pipe rambled as the engine
of the truck idled too rapidly and, then,
stalled.  Everything was restarted.  The vehicle
operated right away.  The computer bumbled
along flashing through scenes and blank screens,
the curser pulsing like a heart beat in the upper
corner.  This had to be worn like a sign of
concentration, meaning that the (citizen, computer)
was being observed, and the sensitive response
would be, literally, automatic, but sometimes
the potentiometer brought, to sight, a gesture
of communication.  It was cute that such clever
trinkets were hiding down in there until the

spirit tapped the muscles of the shoulder blade.
It became apparent this relation depended upon

keys found in ancient aliens such as arcades and
magic books.  A tiny soul was stored in a pocket,
in the telephone; it reached out with its vibration
and launched into the world to grab news with
its operating, search engines.  It had eyes and
could see in the dark.  So, the age was over in
which it could be expected that photographs were
the result of special manners and the courageous
offer of friendly snapshots.  As torches confused

ferocious animals, the excuse depended upon dark
difficulties in the chemical room.  In the garden,
the televised betrayal generated a crossfire of live
video, and, thus, fools were unlucky.  Energy and
conflict had been misguided.  New, public devotion
protected the evolution of tableware or discrete
implements that chimed to be taken into other rooms.
Discourse was enabled and following discursion,
long, private moments carried visitors away.

An idled peace in the forest breathes
Every thought in itself
Whole.
It must be the life spirit, the ministry,
Pole to pole rejoicing.
The thin veil lifted, a school of
Sweeping wings. Let this strange
Hill of nature's suit cradle
Itself.
Let that child rest.

My cottage beads in July's torment.
I dreamed of a fair day
Is why I'm here.
Revolving perspective, will someone
Please hand me a credible vantage point.
The lens to get an even look.

This ancient, contemplating  
Frost moon.
Quiet thought.
Night beats on platters. Heaves
Roving breath.

Dwelling in Innocence
Till birth
Tender eyed, forgotten.
Sweet,
The day will come.

She, today, moves in fabulous array
Of shimmering sparks. Light pale drips
From her shoulders.
Bare wax, the space between myself
And the candle.
Blow away the pride and stand straight to her.
Step in stride. Give her
One to look at.

The sense that life esteems joyfully
Hosting frenzy indeed.
Vast scenes of shipwrecked landscapes.
Ruins whipped by choppy dust.

Heaven's heart treads alone,
Through the ocean's side.
The path of dew is told by the sky.

Lightning takes care of what is left.

The sunken lesson,
Knowing night is close. Shall
We bend through the lilacs weeping?
Laughing?

Someone's taken a serrated blade to
the core of this night
It's moon, shrouded in a widows veil
forms the dimmest of halflight
As the stars all seem to weep its
passing where they fall
And I,
I don't want to sleep with you,
I just want to stay up and talk
As the sounds of the street resound then
fade through this tiny boxroom
The silence filled with comfort as the blue nile
soothe on late night radio

Our view, 
a city landscape towered by the now
idled dockland cranes
Do they dream to escape
to the endless deep blue
like you and I
Or do they cower in the darkness,
longing for morning and
a purpose once more
That dawn jolts as its light reflects
sharply to my eyes from
your stainless blade
But I wake alone, with you lost
to the thoughts and dreams that you are
As the cranes begin to clank
to a meaning they crave,
I cower alone and
accept my fate

A lonely red tugboat anchored at the Hudson River
The Red tugboat in its day would pull some very lavish cruise ships
But here’s a tip
Back in the day, there were stories Sea Captains would say
For starters, the red tugboat having the engine power to pull ships and barches
But as years rolled on, tugboats became a new wave of technology
As you probably gathered, the red tugboat became out of date
Later it gathered dust with no captain nor mate
But things are about to change
A new criteria that will be arranged
The Red tugboat had a new technological engine
This was a reason for the tugboat to feel useful and have fusion
The Red tugboat ropes were thrown over to the deck
It moved from being idled like mothballs
A cruise ship that was travelling from New York Harbor to London, England and the red tugboat was assigned to the call
The tugboat regained its life from being in a stall
But the red tugboat returned with its legacy and it stood tall
A new and improved red tugboat with its sea legs to be proud to be on the Hudson River
All the Red Tugboat needed was a push of confidence
It later became inspiration being the indication
The Red tugboat knows where it belongs
It’s heritage of accomplishments that was so long.