Gravel mounds in the mist
Are the mountain ranges of fantasy,
Spring green, eerie seen
Through commuter train windows.

Pitched roofs recede
Into infinite distance,
And junkyard parking lots are legion
In the gray suburban obscurity.

Factories and landfills loom,
Monuments and mausoleums,
The labor and the leavings
Of the little colossi.

I lean on you;
You need me;
We’re in debt to each other.
It’s simple, you see.

You work hard
And bring home the bread;
Without you, I’d starve
In my solitary bed.

You live in our home
Like a worker drone;
Without me you’d freeze
And be all alone.

Without you, I’d starve
Or live in privation,
We’re the lone citizens
In a private nation.

Though we never make love,
And rarely touch.
We must stay together;
For the world is too much.

Year after year,
We’re apart yet near.
No one dares rock the boat;
We’re so precariously afloat.

We could languish like this until we die;
We seem quite normal to the untrained eye.
And apart yet together, we could stay,
Until the tides of time just wash us away.

Finished on January 3, 2011

Scream, Memory

Accidents don't happen on holiday,
do they?
Standing in the shower, I stare out of
a tiny window at the setting sunlight.
In a row, children on a rustic bench
chatter through their colored ices
and kick their sandaled feet.
Soon, a tall, bland man appears
with smiles for all--this is his family
and he is happy.
His ambiance is like a drug so I leave
my caravan, barely dry,
Wanting to speak to him and not knowing why.
His good fortune draws one to him,
Yet I find another reason.
He directs me without words
to a desolate room and a gown.
And I remember...that I have not remembered
lately. And my collection of names is dwindling,
memory leaking like a wire basket.
Even before I don the ugly robe and lie down
on a cold, plastic bench,
I know what the diagnosis will be.
The cylindrical tunnel looms and his nurse or wife
motions to it as he still smiles.
The machine roars like time passing
And I emerge carefully, not wanting to know.
Seeing my expression, he turns on me:
"It is bad news, but also sad."
He tilts his head like a bird, self-satisfied.
His vacuous delight belies the words.
What the hell is the difference, I think.
And like a falling tree, reality splits the dream
And knocks down my life.
I weep, uncontrolled.
It does not help to swear
nor to hit the wall with my fist.
But would it help to slap the doctor?
People crowd around and tell me to stop
but, as I had to when my father died,
I continue to rave.
For, what is simple to them
I will not make so to me.
I will mourn and censure Fate!
And if I still must,
I will not go gently
But scream all that I remember
Into the fading light.

April 19, 2019