The storm passes, winds once upliften have spent their embrace
and Nature calls anew to the ripening surges, budding grass once slumbered burst to life
while birds in willful glee dance the verge, whistling delight
to drink the freshened Air, our thundering night torn through the wastes
or swept swiftly along, kissed the Earth in glance of praise-
Our glad meeting, greeting and raucus entreating.

Here calls like clarion tones, like silver bells, attuned for an ascending climb
and scale of seeming or believing, less tightly held to vagrant wishing
but embraced in sight of sure horizons, traveling on like Osprey on the hunt
or Otter dove for the rivulet streams our minds intend, or hands direct-
a tinkling on the wire, vision, strength against the currents of our times
two matched in each, Above/Below...corresponding on.

It was up in Minnesota
or was it South Dakota
It doesn't matter
we know how the story starts

It's friday, time to party
Some girl comes in dressed all tarty
With a body
That could break a thousand hearts

There's gonna be a storm tonight
A cat fight's on the way
You just hold on when it all starts up
And then you clear the way
You just know it's gonna happen
Something bad is in the air
Just grab your beer and hold it
Just watch the nails and flying hair

All the eyes were on her
You knew she was a goner
You could feel the tension
And hear the nails extract

In jeans of lace and denim
With perfect slits cut  in 'em
You knew that she was hunting
that's a fact

There's gonna be a storm tonight
A cat fight's on the way
You just hold on when it all starts up
And then you clear the way
You just know it's gonna happen
Something bad is in the air
Just grab your beer and hold it
Just watch the nails and flying hair

The band played loud and raucus
As the bar's all female caucus
Watched her close
As she went toward the bar

You could tell that this girl's reason
Was to hunt the men in season
And she set to take
the first one to her car

There's gonna be a storm tonight
A cat fight's on the way
You just hold on when it all starts up
And then you clear the way
You just know it's gonna happen
Something bad is in the air
Just grab your beer and hold it
Just watch the nails and flying hair

when the crowd split like the Nile
And there standing with a smile
was the girl of the
man this girl had claimed

Well, the bottles started flying
And though the bouncers all were trying
The fight broke out
Between the two I named

There's gonna be a storm tonight
A cat fight's on the way
You just hold on when it all starts up
And then you clear the way
You just know it's gonna happen
Something bad is in the air
Just grab your beer and hold it
Just watch the nails and flying hair

The cops broke up the rumble
Amid the debris and the crumble
Our combatants were
off to jail that night

Tomorrow they would be found
Back and out of impound
At another bar
And in another fight

So, It may be Minnesota
or down in South Dakota
But, no one cares
We all know how the game is played

So, when you feel a storm brew
And you know it won't involve you
Grab your beer
And watch...your night is made.

Check out all the books on the shelves
and remember me to your mother.
Or sell a few back cheap to some
spindly haughty clerk at the shop.
He might remind you of me when we
first slid books to each other
and our fingers kissed. If you find yourself
in tall stacks, hiding,
spend a moment to remember my lips on your stomach
and how our hot breath mixed
when we read aloud. Under the covers.
When you cross bars, carry your knife,
for ****'s sake. Go on snapping
mussels and water flows, the particles
that clog our veins;
and, publish a thing or two,
so I can know you're alive,
while I fester my own wounds.
If you cut your hair, keep it
blonde and I'll know you read this.
Or dye it black and I'll stop writing
to you on snowy days, prefer to walk
between the aspens and sleep forever
under the stars. Smell the pages of your armchair
fiction and make a mental note to clean your sheets.
The world is filled up with writers, and lovers.
Shove the new release pile over,
label it "read later" and get back
into the shop to find another
volume louder and more raucus than mine.
And throw your journals into boxes,
ship 'em to your cousins'.
When we're gray, you can think
back to pool cues and pillow talk.
And I'll cry when you bin me again.

The first time I visited, I walked the streets at night,
past closed stores and brightly lit restaurants
with their specials proudly displayed in the street.
The smell of onions, meat and seafood grilling
wafted into the street. Temptation.

I could hear the bay, soft waves and wind.
In one dark corner, a bar, the Grotto.
Faintly, I heard music, raucus Southern rock,
out of place at this end of the world New England spot.
I smiled at the dichotomy. Temptation.

There was a time, long ago,
when bars were my second home,
much as diners and dives are today.
I would sit in the corner, and listen,
and watch people through the smoke.
I don’t think I ever picked up a woman in a bar.
I never got quite drunk. but I loved the atmosphere,
loose and sad and unrestrained, for better or worse,
an alcohol fueled honesty.
As I walked by, someone opens the door to leave
and you can smell the smoke. Temptation.

I made my way through the town. And back again,
giving each temptation a second chance to lure me in.
And why not? Why not surrender?
There is nothing in any of these doorways
that would reduce me to sinner status.
Well, maybe a little gluttony, but momentary, no more.
My soul would survive that.

But I am not here for these things. I am here for peace,
and I turn away from the noise and walk towards the pier.
Most of the fishing boats are gone, at work during the night.
The ones left bob on the waves.
Work lights flood the decks. Ropes are deftly coiled.
I breath in the air, A mix of salt
and the remnants of yesterday’s catch.
In one of the smaller boats an old man mends nets.
He nods. I nod back.

It has been a good trip. Tomorrow I drive home.
There is the one last temptation. To stay.
But I will pass by this one as well.
Living at the end of the world has its charm
but those I love and those that love me
live five hours away. My life is not my own
and I would not want it to be.
As beautiful a temptation solitude can be,
in the end, isolation is the enemy.

You have learned this the hard way,
and dense as you are, you rarely make the same mistake twice,
no matter the temptation.