It is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,

The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,

The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float

Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous

With richness, hair heavier
Than sculptured marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear

Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening

Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony

Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,

Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge

Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source

Of your ice-hearted calling --
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting

Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there.

my skin
is thin and
swimmingly scrim.

the moonface
pushpulls me.

i am
moved
too much.

i am
not enough
mover.

i am *****
given,
all too often.

i am
not
me -

i am you
in your supine
palm.

i matter
little.

my
molecules
are
fast
becoming
transparent,

vibrating with the sound
of your voice, which

seems real
-so real-

real
like
when

the kitchen
sink
disposal

runs.

Some nights it
is alarmingly
imperceptible:
an exoskeleton ascends
on iron rivets and steel;
unseen scaffolding tapers
to a steady pulsing point
of phosphorescence—
a mechanical heart
circulating red light
into leaden clouds.

Some nights the air thickens
with cordite, grief, and snow.

Tonight with winter here
we can see the tower’s
beacon blinking through
a tangled scrim of trees
half a mile across town,
and yet even with our
bodies squeezed together
like radio dials in the dark
we are unable to tune it in—
the signal that would calibrate
our estranged transistor hearts.

open your mouth --- wider
there, those are bones
roots known by the flesh

look at your fingertips
they too bear the bone
scrim ***** coverings, ten of them

the scar on your skin
observe it
harm came to you
visited you - did you

re
member
it?

or did you
bottle it
and set it to
the dark green
murk beneath?

is it a part of you
that you shun? embarrassed
by its inarticulate language
curling and lunging

discolored other?

animal, listen
your mouth noises: mere symbol

your thoughts:
brief shimmer o' the surface

this is black
you are but blue
that is all

Whole hours slipped away. and later those days
when time became nothing but the tide
rising and falling like a clarinet echoing a concerto.
Night after night, I listened for silver keys clapping  
its melody sewing a soft shroud around my ears.
Its sound bellowed into the twilight with
stars stinging my neck with their glare.
My very existence hurled into a dark shipping lane
with ferries and barges scaring my view, but
sometimes the ladder from the moon’ reflection
beckoned me climb to that astral galaxy.   For there
I was blinking, weeping tears, I was alive                                     .
Then in a moment, my legs would groan.
Suddenly, as splintered arrows they splashed
into the angry waves and then sank into a scrim of water
steering me into a safe harbor, where anchoring
I could bob with the tide and then one day
I winched in my billowed sail
drying my eyes from a night of loneliness
dawn flickered light on my lashes! wind
laughing like a beacon! On the rim of the horizon.

By scratch and scrim and keys, a poets write,
Parsing the eyes drop, lancing the buried ear,
Under the hewning gaze of hazel trees night,
Streams forded, moon and yew stepping, stare.

Done the unrequited thing before
Already been on the wrong side of the two-way mirror
No desire to be behind a front-lit scrim again
So I'll dance beneath a veil, hidden in plain sight
Bat my eyelashes from behind a painted fan
Chasse away from someone who never needs to know

By scratch and scrim and keys, a poets write,
Parsing the eyes drop, lancing the buried ear,
Under the hewning gaze of hazel trees night,
Streams forded, moon and yew stepping, stare.

.
In a swagger of swirl bones begin,
Bold artist looks back on kept time,
Fierce eyes fencing out from a pen,
So much soul reels unto scrim lines.

In a swagger of swirl bones begin,
Bold artist looks back on kept time,
Fierce eyes fencing out from a pen,
So much soul reels unto scrim lines.

~
By scratch and scrim and keys, a poets write,
Parsing the eyes drop, lancing the buried ear,
Under the hewning gaze of hazel trees night,
Streams forded, moon and yew stepping, stare.

I  am  no philosopher
I  am  Paul  from  The Meadows
pulled skinny  poor from the  shadows to put  a  deal of fat  on his bones

so  how  did   I  end  up   here?
what penalty did   I  accrue?

taking the  ten  point deduction for  conduct unbecoming
I  place my  attention  deficit on re-order that I  don’t  yet  forget

smothered  in the  scrim of this  Hogarthian hood every  chip toothed  blue   scriptured face
proffers  passage to a  poisonous but tantalising hook

to write the  junk  must I  taste the junk?

peddled or paddled for  a  sweeter  flight this  avenue never  taken,
hedonic ingress  unwalked,  unwanted yet  still wondered
could such  deep surrender  be   so  sweet to  allow the  most  intimate  of plunder?

am I  Dante?
corralled   around  the  streets
of a  society that  shows no compromise amongst  the  dying embers  of fallen  enterprise

eternal  damnable gyres around a  ****** **** pyre
of concrete,  glass  and  broken  humanity

with    each    uttered    breath    a    cold      cocktail    of profanity

the  bouncing soles of the  air  I  wear  may ease  me over  the  gummed archipelagos
flag  spij-speckle  guaran islands slab secure and  fast
against  the  counselled wash an  eternal  fossilised chaw
that  resists  the  fiercest chemical blast

lost in this  sea    I  cannot  be   but shaken  by the  waxy  man  with his  head  of startled  hemp and  coterie  of cracked  carbon
as  he breaches the  domestic brink

turning a key, his shoulders  hunched  in protective  shawl against

the  spittled spate
he stares  back through me
for  sightless  miles insides out,  front  to rear, then  scuffles, rattling,  townwardly

cannot resist  the  insecticidal compulsion of the  green  and  white purgatory
where  the  neatly  stacked  wash  of fluorescence makes  oven ready  your  heaven
amid the  threnodial thrum  of
a  hundred syncopated Siemens

following  that   shuffling   cortege  of  the   bussed  in dead and  dying
I  am dutiful, altar  bound, avowed and  accursed the  host with the  ghosts in this  haunted  mall lost  and  lonely  within  England’s  mountain  green
it  is no longer the  god   bothering needles and  blunts that    draw the crowds
as  flat  screened pharmacological rapture,
that  trinity  of distilled, medicated caffeination

lead   a   once   pious   nation   through   a   precocious dream

maybe Allah yet  sees  here  his
Jerusalem  and  leads his children
upon  England’s  land  of  crescent  green

That sound, like vengeance, bitter and whining!
The unseen terrors ‘midst an unstirring throng
Come weaving between my fingers, books, ears.
Why, oh, why does it target me?
A bee, a stinging assumption of the most
Prevailing type, a thing—if ever there was—
Most hated by the modern man:
A loafer inspiring fear, inspiring action
But to act would draw the cool judgment
Of my peers—a ****, a twitch, a sound—none move.
This distance, for it does not bother you!
No hesitation to act progressively when charity
Is abundantly “there” but the coffers deign to open
And the kitchens are dry, and the powers are artifice
To shove the matter—illusory—to the great blue wayside.
Away, away thing! Do not plunge your itinerancy
In the soft of my skin—I do not want you here,
Remove yourself from my sweet drink,
Remove yourself from my food, remove
Your presence—transparently, I don’t have to think
About you if you…just…leave!

And it did—ha! Hell spawn! Parasite! But such a lonely
Planet finds its orbit just as drifting rocks find theirs,
Even if it unaccommodating, in the outer wears,
To sylvan marches—take thy there!
And it has, poor little creature, buzzing through the miens aslare
Spacey, empty, sans (attention), but sans care.
None will bat an eye as its well-meant body,
Interpellated annoyance, genetic condemnation,
Vermilion-paints on the walls of Hell,
Floats, broken, between uncaring faces, looking for
That thing called home, arms warm from its
Present-roam—uncared for Other on lithe little wings
Glass beats at the speed of sound, beat heard
Against the sky’s blue scrim, glass rippling, incensed
So quick, movement becomes oneness and still.
Who could not love you when you’re world’s ignominy?
These ******* are but foul, they can not love you
Steeled by the constant repressive ire
For that which is so homeless—what is spurned in steely pines
And flown away, far, far from the mind,
Ceases to be in the cosmos free, trapped by hate
And invisibility, objectively all, subjectively none.

Oh help me, please.  I beg you and,
when on my knees to pray,
I need a little helping hand
to guide me through the day.
I have to face a motley band
who try to model clay.  

I give them all my careful gen,
to help them understand.
The work is very simple when
they’re organised and planned.
And yet their fumbling specimen
look strictly second hand.

I demonstrate the handy way
of  ‘pipes’ and ‘slips’ and scrim.’
To no avail, I have to say,
their efforts still look grim.
So give me patience, please, this day;
they’re all so very dim.

                                     ~

By scratch and scrim and keys, a poets write,
Parsing the eyes drop, lancing the buried ear,
Under the hewning gaze of hazel trees night,
Streams forded, moon and yew stepping, stare.

We are here
Flames of the oil burn
Red as Passion
Then Black as the midnight
Lighted with the incandescence
In some town home’s
Low light.

We’re alight, aflame
In the hearth of heart
A huge void, nebula
We stars, are apart
While different nights flicker all the same
As planets return from whence they came

Illuminated by the spice of ***
A pact, a covenant with the sun
Burning in a blackened scrim
As though in the void, nebula
Another revolution
Arching to begin

These giants flicker, the souls of my world
These stars I call my friends
To repellant forces we’re linked in defiance
In tenacity
In camaraderie
The laws of physics
Defy US!

By its dictates we can’t know when
That what begins
Must surely end…
But we burn like stars
In the midnight air
And in my scope
And in my sky
Nothing but blackness, infinity there
As long as the earth
And all its stars exist together
I know I can't know
What does not last forever.

Out the sleek window
Of the sixth floor again
In Dely Brahim
The scene shifts back;
A long-forgotten actress, I’m placed stage front
A fantastically convoluted Baroque set all around
Vistas broaden behind me, into the distance
So many ornately painted side-wings stepping back
Over-constructed, swelling hills
Teeming with terra-cotta roofed houses; patched,
Faded scrub pasture
Flattened, stylized, staggered against
The distant scrim of a
Daintily picked-out, smokey gun-blue
Mountain range. This
Amazingly contrived
Mediterranean opera-stage set
Encloses me
And I strain to remember
My lines.

at the chase fast forward, on
thru the fight scene,
then thru the ***,
and the coverup, nothing happened
but
everybody knows,
the scene
off stage, earlier ages of us, remember

AI ai ai a soliloquy on a staged scrim behind
the anunciation's green screen….

+++++++++
there's this strange knack of knowing what is
most likely next, and making ready
for the worst
that could really happen AND
be my fault.

I am ready for that.
War, give me one good reason death
must be feared.

Not a question. A command, do as I say
you must,
servant of truth you believe…

truth never proves false,
light replaces darkness, there is no negotiation.

We won, learn on,
knowledge now is in the reader' hands,

together, praying, ha, asking
IF
interactive life is a book, my whole role
is in the cloud, as a trope

all I do is obey, as I was edu-ma-cated-trick
related to pass tests,

any question, ask, AI know the answer on the test.
AI wrote the test.

Different, you and I
Never see, never aye
I hear you scream,
I shout the steam,
We never seem to be,
Connected, you and me,
I dare to care, woe and woe,
Control, so and so
Much we have been,
Oblidged but paper thin,
The bond is dimly stoutly and scrim,
A short shot end of endless whim,
The best I could ask for,
True friend with shaky splendor.

thin cleave of her
insinuating itself
my skin scrim accepting

altar to alter
this touch is a pill
im ****** up

pupils chasing
out the white
fell elegiacally

dark mattering
cup brimming
this is dope

Pendleton Shirt

Wool that never wears out  
Plaids welcome in any circle
Pockets shingled with ***** and tails
That stay tucked no matter what
Yours smelling of lanoline
Mixed with gasoline
Sweat broken unloading
Imperials in Wheeling
Dried salt scrim by Akron
Heroic buttons
Holding back the minor
Planet of your belly
Satin labels stitched  
Into elliptical orbits of collars
Shirts found
Sagging on hangers
At the end of the day
Exhausted from their work
Concealing the contours
Of a hounding emptiness.

Fro and yaw,
I've taken on water,
Jamming the frequency with static.
A strange adjustment of ratchets and pawls.
Hot Cherry, bane of my life,
I get your final comedown.
Some feely f#€k encounter,
**** the story,
It's here,
And here, and here.

Moonlit, the silence of dirt,
I've got to tear down these walls,
You swore it was Heaven,
The way the carwash was lit
With the last of summer,
A blip on the cosmic calendar
Wanderlust.
Everything pales in the plain,
Silverfish run under the streetlights,
Put it all on dust radio,
And it comes down when it **** well pleases.

It all pales in the noon,
Some obscure ghosts,
Brandy Alexander's in the moonlight,
Practiced Pretty Boy nod off
At the bar,
Some swimming nighttime dark Enchantress,
Vexing succubus, Waking
To the stench of smelly sheets
Drawing in this manifold nightmare,
Red toenails and blood wisp at midnight.

Like a hollow drum I pound,
Pierced and yellowed
And worn clear through.
There's a fog along New Gloucester
And a monster prowls the highway,
Running along darkened trails,
******* what light there is.
It has some fact and form,
It's mostly obscured by clouds,
Hiding in the scrim of a bare field,
It moans the hour of waking.

Suffer the children to come to Thee,
There lies the Kingdom of Glory,
While I bide my time in this Habit,
Cinched up tight for your disapproval.
I may mire and muck the proceedings.
I'm like a train wreak at noon
And a wheel turning in the sun.
And I'll mercy your begotten Laury,
And ****** away the light.

Weak words like tea in an old woman's cup,
There here amongst the clutter,
Perhaps in this room with a broken clock,
An old wristwatch,
A dusty beer bottle stood on end.
Broken records with pirate songs of old,
More a distant cry,
A mournful calling.

O sure, I've spent time on the Du Da Ranch,
Dreaming potato pancakes,
A Denver with coffee.
Who said time would sneak up like this,
Nipping at our heels?
Stealing time like a thief.
It's a swan in the lake,
A spider in the room,
Shoeboxes of old photos covered in dust.
A rusted ***** stuck in the jamb.
Bleak moments in the rain,
Holocaust survivors in grainy images.
Here comes Herman Goring
Dressed as Santa,
All smiles and candy for the children.

It's a mad dash for the Happy Trails Back Home.
Venus, my baby, tell me
Something on this naked night?
Good God Night Love,
Grab the rails.
It's a dinosaur running the highway,
Overloaded from Michigan
To Indy City,
Funky info to nowhere.
I got another Disco Mania Movement
All drew up in my mind.
Nothing in the pipes, no matter,
No more pizzazz along the avenue,
Kinda lay out and lay low,
Get my drift,
While I pick dead man's bones one at a time.
I got 209 of em-
What's your story?

Trista Means Sorrow (I Act Play)
SETTING: Brooklyn Bridge at night. The sky is overcast, but no rain is threatening. The clouds look auburn. Lights shine in the water. The skyline of New York City painted on a scrim in the background.

A woman (Trista) is sitting on the railing next to the footpath of the bridge. She's facing the water and looks down at it. She has deep sorrow on her face, but no tears are flowing. She is Caucasian. She looks from the south. What would be considered white trash. Dressed shabbily, obviously homeless, her face etched with care. Her belongings are tied around her waist. It is very obvious that she's a jumper.

Enter another much younger biracial woman (Amanda) This one obviously a student, dressed in stylish grunge. She stops. The other has not seen her. Obviously. Trista seems off in another world.

Amanda looks around. It is quite late at night, and the young girl is frightened. She knows how to take care of herself, she's athletic. But she's alone. There is no one around, which has made her brave enough to take a walk at this hour of the night. But now she is confronted with a situation she is totally unprepared for. Trista looks over and sees her. A startled look crosses her face. Then a look of fear. Then belligerent anger.

TRISTA (mockingly): Well, well, well. What have we got here, God? A saving angel... How sweet. ( she glances back at the water, then looks again at Amanda) So. You gonna call the cops? ( her look is menacing).

AMANDA: ( with a shaky voice) No... please. I don't want... I... I don't...

TRISTA: ( interrupting) So. You don't want to... what? You don't want to call the po po. Or you don't want this po woman to jump. ( she looks at Amanda hard) don't think you gonna to stop me. Cuz you ain't.

Amanda is shaking. Filled with fear. It's obvious that Trista might do her harm. But she does not turn around just leave. Moments go by. The two women look at each other.

TRISTA: (In a voice of low, threatening anger) you best leave, little girl. Take your grunge a* outa here. You are not welcome in my livin... or in my dyin. This is no place for you.

Amanda does not budge. She's looking more and more resolved. She's fearful, but she does not want this woman to die

TRISTA: (Shouts) GO ON, YOU HIGH-YELLER !! LEAVE!!

Amanda still stands there. It's obvious that she's not going anywhere. She sees through the woman's anger as fear. She meets her eyes. There seems to be no rancor in her stare. She does not take the insult. She's heard it all before

TRISTA: (In a low, cutting voice) Go on, half-breed. Go on lookin at the white trash. Like you better...

AMANDA: ( obviously digging into her reserves of Bravery) You're not trash...and there's only one race. Human.

TRISTA: ( obviously taken aback but scoffing)
Ah.. ah...HA! HAHAHA.. HAAAW!!! A little Brave One!! Well, I'll be ******. The little brown angel has a voice, God. But it's sayin nothing but *******. Go on out of here little brown angel. Fly fly fly. There ain't nothing for you here, 'cept watchin me die. I can fly too, little brat angel. Or I ustah.... now my wings broken. ( she looks down at the East River again. Her anger has softened. The sadness is coming back into her face)

AMANDA: (softly) You talked to God just now. You believe in him, don't you?

There is a long pregnant pause. Amanda is looking steadily at Trista. Trista is looking down at the water.

AMANDA; (Assertively) DON'T YOU.

TRISTA: Oh, yeah. I believe in 'im. I believe in the devil, TOO. Ben Lorda m' life for years... years... (she's looking down at the water again. Defeatedly.).

AMANDA; Do you really believe that? ( she's looking angry. But she's not mad at Trista. She's mad at the Devil.)

TRISTA: (She's angry again. Her voice is low and cutting) Let me tell you something, little brown angel. I'm not what you would call Saint Catherine. That name means pure. I ain't pure.
I ain't rich and I ain't purdy. I ain't clean and I ain't sober. Only reason I'm not drinking ***** cuz I don't have money. Honey. Only reason I ain't using is same. I'm up against a wall. Wall of pain I can't stand. Can't even buy cigarettes. Had all my money stolen. Most of my stuff. Sleeping on a ******. Oh!! Did I tell you that I a crackhead? Not only crackhead. Crack-w. Been down on my knees with bums have more money than I had. (Trista looks off into the distance. Seems to reminisce) Came here to the Big Apple full of worms with Big Dreams full of . Wanted to be a Broadway star. Same old story same old dance. Same old tale of Bad Romance. (She starts to look haunted). I had no idea. The lights were on. The big Broadway Times Square LED lights. But nobody was f* home.

AMANDA: (Her eyes full of empathy) You are an actress? What happened?

TRISTA: (Hard. Cold. Cutting.) Not "ARE" little brown angel. WAS. Has been that never was. Too corn pone. Ain't Gon School Nuf. Caint reed. Caint spel.Hell. I aint even got a GED. Shoulda stayed outside Biloxi. Married Bubba. Ben barefoot and preggers...

AMANDA: ( narrowing her eyes and looking at her shrewdly) Why do you talk that way? Like your uneducated? Like you're stupid? Like you're racist? You try to make it out like you are oh, but you slip up too often. Like you told me that the name Catherine means pure. And other things too. You may not have a GED oh, but you ARE intelligent. Act like it!!

TRISTA: ( eyes wide with disbelief) Like you care? Who am I that you should care for me? Who are you that I should care for you? Let me tell you, little brown angel, this world is cruel. It's a meat grinder, and you gonna come out a steamin pile o meat an feathers. Don't you care!! Don't you care about anybody!! Do you hear me? DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT ANYBODY!!! (Starts to cry).Least of all ME.

AMANDA : (slowly) But that's why were put on this Earth. To care about each other. Love each other.

Another pregnant pause

TRISTA: (furious) L... L...LOOOVE!!! LOOOVE!!! What the hell you know about that??? ( Trista swings her legs over the railing and stands to face Amanda) Oh. I know all about THAT, you say. (Sarcastic whine) Cuz I know God... God is love, doncha know... God is ****** F LOVE DONCHA KNOW...

AMANDA: (Cutting her off sharply) do you believe in God? Yes. You do. Otherwise you wouldn't be talking the Way You Are. Then why are you cussing him?

Trista stares at Amanda in disbelief. The two women stare at each other. Trista is furious, but she is met with a look of pure courage, love, and acceptance. Her mouth gapes closed and open like a fish.

TRISTA: (Her voice low and menacing again)  One thing I gotta say bout you. You BRAVE. Don't you realize you're in the middle of New York City. On the Brooklyn Bridge. In the middle of the NIGHT. (Her voice gets louder and louder as she speaks) With a CRAZY WOMAN??!! TALKIN BOUT GOD, WHO THE CRAZY WOMAN HATES?? (Her voice gets low again. She doesn't sound angry anymore though. But profoundly sad) go on now little angel. There's nothing for you here cept death and dying. And the crazy woman who could throw you over the side of this bridge at any time. Might have a knife. Might have a gun. A crazy woman. I'm a crack w*. Not a nun.

AMANDA: you are a human being. I can't bear the thought that you might die tonight. I might be young, but I know how to take care of myself. I know I might not look like it, but I've got a third degree black belt in Taekwondo. Believe it. I'm no nun either. I may be small, Young, and a Christian, but I know how to take care of myself. If crossed with physical violence I am nothin nice.

Trista looks at Amanda calculatingly. She's intrigued by this girl now. She knows that in a fight the older woman, she would lose. She doesn't want to keep up her bravado. But she has learned over the years not to show any weakness. Not even to a young Christian woman.

TRISTA: my God angel. You haven't got the sense good God gave a no-see-em. Your brain is smaller! You might think you're ten feet tall and Bulletproof. You can kick like a champ, but you're not going to outrun a gun. I could have a gun in my belt. You are a FOOL.

AMANDA: Well. If you had a gun you would have sold it already for ***** and drugs. No. You don't have a gun. As for being a fool, well. I'm not the one who is sitting on a railing considering  suicide.(Her voice gets soft) I'm not going to try to talk you out of this. I have a phone. I want you to call the suicide hotline. Talk to somebody.

Another pregnant pause. Trista looks at Amanda. She sees that she serious. She knows the girl is not giving up now. Her Pride is starting to melt. As is her heart. She's beginning to like this girl now. She's tough and she's Brave. And she seems to really care.

TRISTA: (With a softer, friendlier voice) Well. Aren't we the smarty pants. You're going to get me to talk to somebody now. What you got one of those smartphones? Smartphones for a smarty pants?

AMANDA: (Smiling) it'll feel like it weighs a ton at first. But they can get you help. Maybe what you need is a rehab. Three Hots and a cot anyway. They'll take you in for a while. Have you been sober 24 hours?

Long pause

TRISTA: Yes.

AMANDA;  (Smiling, but with a serious look on her face) Let's get you clean. What's your name?

TRISTA: Trista. TRISTA MEANS SORROW.

AMANDA: (Her eyes begin to well with tears) Not anymore.

A long, long pause

AMANDA: My name's Amanda.

TRISTA:  (her eyes welling with tears, also) Amanda means worthy of love.( Long pause)

YOU ARE.

Amanda takes a cell phone out of the pocket of her hoodie. She holds it out to Trista. After what seems like an eternity, Trista takes it. She walks over to the railing. Sits down on the cement ground. Amanda sits down a little ways away from her. Trista dials. Offstage voice of a woman saying hello. Trista begins to talk to her, Softly.

TRISTA: Hi... can you help me?

[She continues to talk to the voice off stage oh, but it is a mumble and not really heard by the audience... lighting Fades to Black.

Amanda comes into a spotlight. She recites a poem...

BRIDGES

You're lookin' at the river
Feelin' down and weak
When you're
Wadin' in the water
and it's rushing 'round your feet
When you want to
Reach the other side
And feel you can't retreat
The same insane song
In your head
And it is on "repeat"...

Just remember there are Bridges
They are made of words
Remember there are Bridges
Things you haven't heard
Remember there are Bridges
Made with human hands
Remember there are Bridges
Then you'll understand

The waters in that riverbed
They are cold and deep
They have a riptide current
So look before you leap!
You can't stand against them
They will take you down
You may just go under
Brother, sister, you will drown!

Reaching out ain't easy
But it don't get much worse
Than feeling down and vulnerable
Living with a curse
It's like picking up the planet
To lift that lifeline phone
But there people who
Will care for you...
You are not alone!

Just remember there are bridges
They are made of Words,
Remember there are bridges
Things you haven't heard,
Remember there are bridges
Made with God's own hand
Remember there are bridges
Then you'll understand.

Remember there are Bridges
When you are at a loss
They weren't made to jump from

They were made to CROSS.



THE END

5 a.m.

Gentle rustling of leaves from nearby tree
same early bird-song drifting through my window
my eyes were heavy and I was still drowsy-
jealously I clung to my pillow.

6 a.m. onwards to 6.59

The train had its first run around my area
the dreadful clanging sound was too familiar
the neighbour's wretched dog Heather
was barking at the milkman--at six and a quarter.

7 a.m.

The mini-bus had arrived at the nearby school
the kids began to sing ' We Are The Nation's Pride'
Mrs Scrim the HM uttered the same words: 'Obey every rule'
my sleep was shattered--I rolled from side to side.

8 a.m.
     The automatic clock sang: ' Oh What A Beautiful Morning'
     (Getting up from bed was like being summoned to the jail)
      my wife yelled  ' You'll be sacked if you go on lingering'
      this is the pulse of the day--do you understand my sad tale?

I see you every
night elongated in warm
dreams on Summer skies.

I touch my face with
your memory now still warm.
My fingers smooth tears.

I am sad in the
act of kissing you. Goodbye
is a sorry dream.

I see you every
day through the scrim on the
Proscenium stage.

Goodnight Sweet Prince I
knew you well. I hold you still
in my folded hands.

Caroline Shank

The archaic symbols of the dream
appear nightly stained on some
gigantic scrim.  There’s a battle
going on in one corner, a damsel
is at stake of course; her favors
his reward.  Somewhere else is a
monkey holding a tin cup and
pant-hooting at passers by.
There will be some trouble if he
doesn’t get his pennies.  More
I suppose if he does.

A man and a woman face each other;
she prepares bandages for his war.
The problem is she can’t reach the
victims he piles up.

Birds fly, horses fly, lizards slither
out of holes each with pieces of’
paper fluttering from their mouths.
The paper disappears leaving only
sockets without sound.

The dream is incomplete without the man,
standing still in the middle, his spear
pointed up.  He cannot move
and the tears on his face
are children.



11/11/80


CSS publications 2nd place winner 8/84  $25.00

Shadow, Shadow upon my door,
What wake you bring of Evermore?
Raven,Raven, at my screen,
What tale of blood you bring?
Flesh, Flesh you curse and rhyme,
What dark clock you chime?
A graven image,
I do suspect,
A word of sorrow,
A thought neglect.
You tear and smear and pull asunder,
O what dark garden do you plunder?
You live of ash and beetle root,
And dry blood speckles
Your black suit.
You speak of death and call a ruin,
A harbinger of of malice you bring soon.
Your pale moon, your bloodless friend,
O what dark curse you descend?
You call a fate, a rusted loom,
And weave a madness I must presume.
I call, I lie, I leave a doubt,
What shall I clamor and shout about?
What tale of folly, what madness you bring,
Dead hauntings of silent spring.
In halls, In halls, I do beseech
You mock and scorn and wave and preach,
Of God's loving promise do you breach.
And footfalls, footfalls, a graven ground,
A whispered knock,an awful sound,
A dank body upon a mound,
This mound, this mound
Of mournful dirt,
A red lie, an evil smirk.
You clash and clang,
A mindless cymbal,
And fill darks cups, a ****** thimble,
You prance and wave,
You are so nimble,
You are a bug, an evil symbol,
While your odor lies
A ****** musk,
Is but a folly, a stab, a ******.
You chime the hour,
The Evening Laud,
A death mask, a witch, a fraud.
O shall I haunt and weep amok,
You are a raven, what a horror you cluck.
What stately ruin lies for me
No dark wonder of serendipity.
Shadow Bleeder, killer of dreams,
My throat be closed, a silent scream.
I shall beseech your waking hour,
I see your scrim, your blackened tower.
I see you ply this broken vase
This weeping lie, this false embrace.
How shall I sleep, how shall I tire,
This one last night, this one last hour.

I once was young,
Now I’m an old man,
Whose time is memory,
Whose future is past.

I sit here with knuckles that ache from this pen.
There’s a light scrim of snow in December’s dusk.
A lone horse and a farmer’s spark light
Dominate my field of vision.
In between this motel and that warm farmhouse
Lay a half-mile of afternoon run away with light.
The barren howl of an idiot wind
Mumbles near words like a ghost.
The fence and slate of white sky given over to winter.
There seems no beginning or conclusion;
Just the warm, pallid air of the heating system.
A gun and a sheaf of poems probably no one will read-
Except maybe the police.
Outside, the horse’s mane is fluid to the wind,
The snow peeking through the window,
Hovers for a moment,
Then falls on past.
                               *
                    April 10 2024