The Past is the Opposite Shallows
The past is the opposite shallows of a river at flood to the lip. And swift do the rapids swallow. And swift are the tides that rip. And that which the past generations have builded on seeming stone Is crumbled in deep desolations, and carried away...
The Sisters of Vengeance
Oh the sisters of vengeance they have not forgotten or fled. I see them still watching the stormclouds that hang overhead. And they told me my fortune and someday I'll know what they said, Though I hope it won't matter until I've been many years...
Curse on a Deserving Land
Dark clouds gather at the edge of the sky. We have one last reckoning, you and I. And you've never met me, you don't know my name, But you are my murderer just the same. In the dust was my living. Unto dust I return. And when have you shown the...
I Switch Off All The Lights
I switch off all the lights. Those that I love Are all abed, both in the other room And all across the city that I love. I see my way across the meagre room And to the too-tall curtains by the light Of thrift-store stained-glass lamp, by oven...
I Think About Revenge Most Every Day
I think about revenge most every day. I pray for it, to it. I draw its eye. I hive its hissing hornets in my heart. I wear its mask and mantle. People say They do not understand how you can live Like that. No more do I! Yet nonetheless I must...
Obituary Instructions
Do not call me an angel, when I'm gone. Mourn me, revere me--or not, as you choose-- But as the human person that I was. An angel is a pure celestial thing Too absolute and too ethereal For earthly things like woe or weariness, For home and...
Maybe Stop Telling This Man What He Wants
"Man wants but little here below Nor wants that little long." How often hath that platitude Been strangled into song? By men who do not want, but have Their little and their more. In rhymes perforce, in meter bad, They serve it to the poor. ...
Eight Minutes and Forty Six Seconds on June Twelfth, Two Thousand Twenty
The rain continues. No thunder dares ring. No winds howl. All is silence, save the sound Of distant trucks down on the interstate. I tell myself, pretend it is the sea That all this rain, perhaps, will wash into. And I remain in silence. What must...
Autumn Is A Pagan
Autumn, he is wandering down in the market square Where they are selling scarlet fruit and golden-tassled sheaves Heaped on the fitted cobbles that are cloaked in drifting leaves, And any citizen who likes can see him walking there. He talks of...
(Scene, An Room Within ye Strongehold of the Pyrate Lord O’Donnel.)
(Enter James McCloud, and Wolf O'Donnell. They bring with them Richard and Robin, bound and gagged.) Wolf: I had hoped to escape affairs of state! James: For you and I to scape them, so must they At least a little while. This dismal cell Must...
I Won't Fear The Sunlight
The waves upon the silken sands Are softer than his breath Where he lies safe below the palms In sleep as deep as death. Soon I will rise from here, and go Down to the opal shore. And I won't fear the sunlight Anymore. I know the taste...
Sunstroke
We heard of him in fairy tales, Unfinished epics, songs in braille. From all ends of the ending earth We tracked him to this place. We each believed the others fools. But all believe: those are the rules. At last his trail, Like...