I'll take more here, forego rewards
Backsided as incentive,
Sell out for music, books, T.V.,
Companionship, true love, good humor,
Sufficient food & Shelter.

Death grants humility and I
Could not be prouder of my love,
Whose legs have given way but by
Some christ like reckoning above
My understanding gives me life
While I attempt some lesser songs
That might or might not cover if
The judgement speaks of my worst wrongs,
Which counting up could take some time
(Which lately comes in short supply)
And reconstructions of the crime,
When I have no more taste for I,
And should be settled in for sleep.
The dreams I've promised, she will keep.

Bad news restocked too soon
For proper recognition,
Much less mourning.
The upper hand, with bullets
To spare,  mad
With opportunity,
Triggers the night,
Mocks The freedom of the day,
Shuts the mouths
Of wide-eyed children.

Our ***** have long erased the lines
Stone-chiseled into  monuments,
Fresh minds distorted by the signs,
Persuasive wine and sacraments.
The old salvation of belief
Hangs out like fossils by the creek,
Sustaining some with sure relief,
Who seldom give the other cheek.
In fear of lack of more than this
Untimed, uneven passaging,
The slow decline & emptiness
Of vanity and preacher's stumps,
As bridges see increasing jumps.

So let's just say you have the choice
Of Tennessee or some place less
Inflected with your mother's voice,
Could you imagine happiness
Come like the rain that's not been seen
For forty days until tonight--
Or do you not get what it means
To need an everlasting light?
As goddesses have rich pursuits,
Accept this bankrupt blazoning;
A paradise of ripened fruits
Could ne'er compare your opening
My heart were it not sore afraid
That once revealed,  it be mislaid.

It feels like freedom, skeleton
Lock clicked and a little money--
Enough for bus fare and a room
In cheap places already seen,
Maybe for a couple of weeks--
The strength to go straight if choices
Overcome the tempter that speaks
Louder than the other voices.
You won't freeze in Florida or
Southern Alabam and might meet
A woman again,  with flavor--
Coarse salt and sweat, yet almost sweet--
And she might share a slight worn key.

It's too fine, with the break in the weather,
This strange humility that's found
Me wanting,  still not knowing where
My mind has been,  or what surrounds
The afternoon, its slow despair
Confounding every effort made
To make amends or clear the air,
In which we each pass too afraid
To use it in the evening damp
When less self-conscious animals
Avoid the halo from the lamp
And touch the night with mating calls.
I'd barter souls,  of heaven blest,
To offer you the morning's crest.

On my good word, this broken line
Began to praise the light at five
And I had much to move and find;
Light lunch and laundry,  heat arrives--
Slow traffic in necessity
Endangered by the solar flare--
This mid-size star has need of me
As god must need the polar bear,
Whose ice is breaking in the sea.
My window frames pedestrians,
Progressing on the concrete walk--
Slow pilgrims mixing prayers and sins,
As I should talk or you should talk
Of anyone misunderstood--
Distorted through the glass & wood.