Reflections at a Pyre Place

Shimmering and fragile

Ebbing into an ashen glory

While you hum into misbegotten darkness--

Am empty mind flaring incessantly

To an end of its world.

Crackling fires of hope and warmth

Are all that keep you alive.

The wood burning away

Is it not a reflection of memories?

That hurt with fiery certainty

And warm your soul to abyssmal peace

 

Nameless Verse

Man at the piano

Taking pictures of you

With melodies.

Are you even listening?

Or does obscurity madden you

To oblivion? Like me.

A dried leaf whisks by

Caressing you in withering strokes

Of a forgotten smile.

You flick it away, you pause

Chuckling at its futility, its nothingness.

The leaf sits at your feet

Shuffled away by meandering memories.

You walk on into the future

The leaf waits, quietly

Patient and silent,

In the alleys of your past.

Bread and Butter

What happens before the act begins?

In these glass halls of precision

Why do we struggle to enter

The gaping global fraud?

I do not belong here

Their eyes are empty, glassy

What happens before you talk with clarity?

Why are you afraid to be?

What happens before the act begins?

Do you ever wonder?

Do you ever imagine?

The sweeper clearing out your dust

The man putting up those balloons

The electrician who fixes the air conditioning--

Men who will never know how it feels

Cool air in the room, while the sun glares outside,

The beeping sounds of door IDs.

I am lost here forever

I want to belong to the forest

Where trees teach me to be still.