Never ignore your fear
It takes one moment of
Repression
And before you know it
It's got you by the throat

When the dusts settle from the last wheel
and the sickle moon stoops on the bamboo grove
the dead rise in the whispers of the southern breeze.

You may hear them splashing the canal's water
beneath the hazed halo of one quarter
by nocturne music of barn owl and crickets
in lights of glowworms from darkest thickets.

If you stop on the Rotwood Bridge
can hear them sing in gay abandon
though we're now all dead old spirits
the night can't make us anymore forlorn.

The twin moon may from the ripples broken
beckon you and if your spirit awakens
take a plunge for a joyous down go
amid cheers from the watery hollow.

Tiny shops hunch in a row
On brick and clapboard feet
A huddle of windows filled
        with come-on-in
The sun slides behind their flat tops
As I wait for you on the bridge --

Clouds push and shove each other
Across a dusky sky:
                I watch you cross the street
A thief bearing a single plucked flower
Your pockets crammed with promises
        that won't be kept
But I don't care
My pulse is launching rockets --

The river beneath flows
        in irrefutable rhyme
Smells of moss and deadwood
        fill the air
Brown geese out for a swim
        are making social calls
As you take my hand
                Small
        Into yours
And I know
When I look into your eyes
I must never kiss you
As twilight tucks us in
        And brushes back our hair --

There is a stirring
      when one sees with clarity
            what lies ahead --

Edges sharpen, and
      the air pressure drops.
            Trees rustle where
                   there is no breeze;

A wind chime tinkles
      in a desolate place
            and it feels like
                  the end of time--

Through tangled wight-lit
weald she wends, one hand
on veinous sword
For in this boscage
fiend does grow, in bile-
brimmed pustules nest.

Beware the night wood,
bladed lady, it’s paths
do twist and gambol
And hellions of the dim
do know its ev’ry
maze-cursed bent.

“Oh come to me!” she
sings out high, into
aphotic brake.
“My vein-sword fears no
devilry. No imp or
soul-baned blight.”

With ringing snick her
blade does flick, to warble
through the murk.
It’s long vein fills
with fiend-blood spilled
from conniving lurk.

Beware the night wood
bladed lady, though first
foe has fallen.
There are still miles
of treachery afore
you find your love.

The dim around her
quickly thickens, with
creatures best not named.
They have come squelching
from fetid pool, from
rotted bole and fen.

Too many for a
veinous sword swung by
skillful warrior,
though still she stands, her
shoulders square, to face
the squalling din.

“Halt!” Calls a voice of
crackling ice from grim
and toothy smile.
“I’ve come to proffer,
lady knight, a means
for your escape.

“Your maiden fair, within
my lair has pressed on
me a wager.
If in fair combat,
I take your life,
she’ll be mine forever.

“And if in turn I
am the one who falls
in ****** failure.
You’ll be hers till
end of time, your strength
ever greater.”

Beware the night wood,
bladed lady, and of
deals forged in the dark.
Though bound by word,
wise ones know, the Night King
can’t be trusted.

For quite a time the
lady hummed in careful
deliberation.
The night-king watched
motionless for her
tiny grim-faced nod.

Then with ringing snick
blades did flick, and warble
through the murk
and history’s greatest
battle was fought for
ghouls within the dark.

When the Night King fell
it was with
a subtle grin of triumph
As fiend applied a
black-thorn crown to
lady’s sweat-streaked brow.

The bladed lady
did achieve
her heart’s earnest goal.
She was wed, ‘neath
dripping bough to the
one she’d come to find.

But while in death, her
foe was free, she
could never leave.
From deepest copse
she still rules, Night Queen
of the night wood.

To all the stopovers
and endings
the delays
and the in between
and the waiting.

I know that it was God's plan
so I will keep still
while pouring all my faith
and trusting God's hands.

What’s a block to you?

Is it a distance that measures street to street in a city?
Or is it a cube of wood used as a toy?
Perhaps a chunk of material, no discernible or particular shape,
Or defense in sport to prevent offense to move.
It could be housing for the incarcerated, a portion of time,
A section of cheese, or lack of writing ideas.
Half an insult, maybe, paired with head?
Part of an engine, working or dead.
Noun, verb, or adjective, the grammarian in me
Asks today what “block” is to thee.