Her house was right on the bus 14 route,
The route that paces back and forth
between the university and general hospital.
This was perfect for us, start to finish.

Early on, when I went to her house,
I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest.
Other times, especially near the end,
I considered taking that Psyc course on Interpersonal Relations.

There once was a boy who loved fire,
He kept matches in hand and sang in choir,
The church burned days after that,
Only matches they found inside a dead rat,
The boy went missing a few days later,
But no one cared, other worries were greater,
So the boy got away with less matches in hand,
Singing dogmatic songs of a fiery land.
One day in black sun a demon will come,
He’ll save us in the blaze hoheehohum

The next town he settled in was quite small,
But it had an orphanage where he could stall,
Living as an orphan was less than fun,
He dreamed of fires, up walls they’d run,
Nuns gave him chores like scrubbing floors,
But living this life was an absolute bore,
Weeks in he again found his little box of fire,
And snuck away at night as his heart desired.
One day in black sun a demon will come,
He’ll save us in the blaze hoheehohum

He started anew in a town called Old Haven,
Teenaged he was and very well-behaven,
He worked for a grocer, handling cash,
But one day, the store’s walls turned to ash,
No one suspected the teen and his matches,
Until he disappeared in a bat of your lashes,
He continued on, without a worry for the world,
Knowing eventually in fire it’d be hurled.
One day in black sun a demon will come,
He’ll save us in the blaze hoheehohum

Eventually he settled in a place with no fire,
Except in the first job where he was no liar,
A crematorium he settled to live,
Bodies he burns, then ashes he gives,
A match started every body-fueled flame,
A box in hand singing the devil finally came.
Then, one summer, the now-man threw himself in,
Mad with laughter, hell accepted him.
One day in black sun a demon will come,
He’ll save us in the blaze hoheehohum

And the chapped sun-baked tire
swung on the aged and frail rope attached to the most outright branch
of the sheltersome oak tree by the carved up picnic bench.
Children fought for such a throne on warm summer days,
Not many cared for clawing and snatching in attaining it,
But it was a necessary fight in those days.

Once they sat in their highest place and swung to the skies,
All they could see was the wind-ridden flow of treetops
rustling and swaying, creating nature’s static,
This why they fought,
This is why only the battered
and bruised cooled their cuts with forest breeze.

It broke one day,
after being a shelter in storming youth,
Charles Ferger snapped the rope
on a smooth swing to reach the sky.
They knew the clock was counting down
and no one could see how much time was left,
but they still hated Charles for being the one it broke on.
It wasn’t his fault, and they knew it,
but they had to blame someone.
No one ventured to it for the first few weeks,
The sight of it only reopened healing wounds.

At a certain point, years later, after the kids
had gone to high school, it was fixed.
No one knew who fixed it or when,
since the kids still went out there once in a while
to drink some nights and have campfires,
but they were glad it was fixed,
then news of the resurrection spread.

And on one MLK day,
no one remembers which,
they had a bonfire and swung as high as they could
to christen it back to its precious worn state once more,
fighting over it with the intentional caution they
used to use when wrestling for the uninhibited freedom
that in lay dormant in the crusty black tire swing.

An elk ran through the open field of snow,
She tired of lending time to shade
And yearned for the heat of a seductive glistening clearing,
To glide above the sparkling diamond sheets,
To cut through the crisp winter air.

Her cautions lingered in shade,
Too quiet for deserving notice,
As no mountain lion or wolf could take down this great best
Regardless, all the forested animals, large and small, watched this elk
Defy whatever instincts or rules nature upheld against the open.

As the elk reached full pace,
Her strides were so long but one thing stopped her
From taking flight was the powdered ground below,
She defied the familiar surface mid-step and began to climb,
But the sky and valley boomed with revolt,
Echoing thunder without lightning,
And the great elk collapsed to the cold snow below
With a ****** hole in her tender side,
Coated in specks of stinging white crystals.

In the elk’s last moments,
She noticed 3 men appear from the trees
Behind her foggy breath,
Boomsticks slung over their shoulders,
But without hate or anger or malice for the hunting men of sport,
The elk died, comfortable that air,
Floating above all she knew, embraced her.

Edgar Poe likes to do some thinking,
Even more likes to go drinking,
Then he writes his stories,
People ask for more please,
But all you hear are bottles clinking.

Planes roar above,
Cars burn through streets,
Fridges and Heaters hum through
us.

When you’re addicted to
Metal & Concrete,
silence is a privilege.

When it is no longer necessary to dream,
When your heart gives out from affection received,
When every second together is perfect,
When the other is no longer a project,
When love is mentioned and you look at her,
When dull moments rarely occur,
When you think of the future and she is there,
When you still are loved with no hair,
When you forget what sadness is,
When you need no more practice,
When you always feel as if the world is new,
When not being with her eats away at you,
When you heart trips you with a slight shove,
That’s how you know you’ve fallen in love.