Magnolia
I sing the Raven’s song
And sought the window.
They were gone.
I wanted simple and sweet.
Leave it to the blackbird
And high priest.
Eyes to the heavens
But door through
Which comfort comes.
Subtle but subtle trump.
Body wants what it wants.
Sing Raven song
In hopes I’d sight just once.
I Am Cain
Man the God’s made.
Regardless of best
Without brother or bond.
The fates back
Whence they came.
Search, sign
Of changing tides.
I am Cain.
Man of affection.
Man of books.
I am a man
Gentle spook.
At my best
Love reveals itself.
Fates back
Whence they came.
I am Cain.
A man of trades.
Hours of toil
And yeoman’s wage.
Barely respect or expect
Brother or bond.
At my best
Love reveal itself. Fates back
Whence they came.
See The Boy
See the boy on the walk.
Old Irving Park.
Towards the waterfront.
By the carload bring
Patrons from uptown.
With my bags of goods
Sheffield street.
See the boy in the building.
He follows me.
See the boy in the building
When solitude is bothersome.
See the boy is harmless.
His tomfoolery no threat.
Sheffield street
Sheffield House annexed.
See the boy Broadway street.
It crosses Halsted.
Galleries and gardens.
His appraisal my modesty.
Modest means no one comes.
See the boy when
Solitude is bothersome.
Dreamer
Dreamer of dreams.
Grand and exotic.
Provenance the effect
On it’s poor subject.
Ever prescient my stolid gaze.
Carnival of queer disinhibited color.
Predilection and paradox.
Strange seas and alleys dark.
Talk of lions and catamount.
Stalk the streets behest of the crown.
Dreamer of dreams,
otherwise vacant bed.
A body of water.
Pool of sweat.
Sheen of slaver
lines unsaid.
Discern my antagonist
and compatriot.
Therein my partisan
and advocate.
Dreams grand and exotic.
Provenance the effect
on its poor subject.
South Village, Providence Island
Collective Consensus:
Bad actors.
The Kings men
as gendarme.
Assassin in the building.
Family business
this murder.
The duo for their part
as if in their boudoir.
By their encore men
meet their demise.
Would they get out
of the country alive?
Tempestuous waters
near theater doors.
Put it to the spotlight
without cover.
Do the same to my lover.
Collective consensus:
bad actors.
The Kings men
as Gendarme.
Assassin in the building.
Romanticism
Fools gold.
An epitaph on
Grave marker.
Says you’re a man of means
Or a lesson for learning’.
Imperfect being
The martyr in me.
Knows nothing more than
Pushing pen.
Lonely prose.
Like writing my name.
Sounds pretty
From her mouth.
Has she interest in uttering?
Her brothers make game of it.
Thin Skin.
Write the equivalence
Of ancient text.
Think long and hard
You put name to the boy.
Likely with his name
To a movement.
How sweet her interest
In treating the beast.
Romantics
With their tea light candles
Burned to nil.
Poignant still.
The unexplained life is merciful.
Say It Like You Mean It
Your stiff chin
And your haughty pointing.
If you don’t mean a word of it
Fall on your poniard.
There is privilege involved.
Your secrets spread
Like smoke signal.
Thrill seekers have
The building surrounded.
The lady of the house set loose
The hounds in the morning.
Your stiff chin when they’re
Picking at your clothing.
If no feel for it
Fall on your poniard.
There’s privilege involved.
The walk from the university
About a mile.
Then to the cellar.
Politics aside.
The despair is thicker
Than expected
Whichever would suffer me
I tell the keeper,
“set one of your ladies…”
The town square.
The bats in the courthouse belfry.
Reincarnate.
Believe the fellow had
Something to it.
Top of the town.
There is always the park.
She shutter at the thought
Of crossing it without escort.
Someone to call on.
Truth is she’s the one I want.
Tell the keeper,
“set one of your ladies beside me
What it cost.”
Despair is thicker than expected.
An interminable mist.
Move about it as if an
Inevitable condition.
There is wicked around.
See their footprints towards town square.
Mad dash past the courthouse
See our way clear.
South Village, Providence Island.
Gem of the theater scene.
Mater raconteur.
And so his narratives
Grace the stage.
They’re true events
Whether he was party to
Or witness.
What it is to be your muse.
Their rapacity for it.
Plausible experience.
Ravenous applause.
The capacity for rapt audience.
Always in character .
The waters an angry black.
All the wit he could use.
All of the passion
And the rapacity for it.
What it is to be his muse.
Off the southwest coast.
The sounds of merry making
Spill out onto the water .
The Brandywine Mountains.
Backdrop.
The venerable venue.
The Royals attend performances.
Tomes written about them.
Tonight’s story:
They stand like prize fighters.
In a room.
Their wear is Spartan.
With little dialog.
Plays out with aplomb.
It’s disgusting display.
Acted as written
There is blood.
Stink
Drop your eyes to the
Worn carpeted floors.
Thick and it’d been there
Absorbing the stench of
natural selection.
A beasts reverence and
likewise disgust.
Love him at your peril.
Mary Ann knows and
she goes to meet him.
Outside a building.
Sometimes he doesn’t show.
The audacity of it.
No letting go.
The stink on everything.
Flowers even
She brings.
Soured on waiting.
There’s a small stream.
A small bridge and trees.
The stink on the breeze.
A beasts reverence
And likewise disgust.
Found a lover
Then all is not lost.
Streets Of Providence
I maintain
Hero and villain
One and the same.
Streets of Providence.
Fever and blood.
Alchemist.
Embers spit
And celebration of it.
Rogues seek
Who see
Beyond beast.
Savage noir.
Raven.
Raise your pistol.
Riches of Royals
And runabouts.
Cliff to vineyard.
Woodland
to Water Street
and the gardens.
Vamp and siren.
I maintain
One and the same.
Lion
Her head to
The window
She stay
In the light.
“There are lion
in the streets.”
It’s 3 a.m.
Stretched
To five feet.
“There are lion
In the streets.”
Her eyes have
Not opened up.
“And I’ve fought
With them and
Still they come.”
I send her in the streets
I have no contraception.
A time of
All measures.
Fewer allies.
Fewer pleasures.
Of a mind for love.
Find someone
From within.
I’m not particular.
The way you
navigate the place.
Naught but spend
The day in bed.
(I Could) Eat You Alive
The lamb is tender.
The dressing piquant.
She will have basmati rice.
The dressmaker is
World famous.
Sinister or sweet.
I could eat you alive.
By the day get
more eloquent.
Suffer a fellow
His whim.
Gifts elaborate
All the more.
It come with
the house wine.
The dressmaker
is world famous.
Leafy greens.
Tomato basil.
Sinister or sweet
Wipe away memory of it.
A damp cloth.
Upper floor lavatory.
I could eat you alive.
Grand Apartments, Providence
Built turn of the century.
Black doors.
Imagine the horrors.
There are spirits
In the tower.
Keep to a particular
Level of isolation.
The current occupant
And the woman before.
It is the violence.
The noise outside.
The silence.
The spooks inside.
Trip over them
To get a breath.
The lift bring us to our
Individual floor.
Black doors.
A companion.
Among the vampires.
Festivals to some deity.
When your quarry leaves
Could have been a week or weekend.
However long it takes to conceive.
The things she’s seen.
Things to raise hairs.
I can imagine where
The bed had been.
A chair to entertain guests.
If it isn’t bedbugs
It is the specters.
The loneliness.
If they would only stay
Then she comes to her senses
And moved away.
When finally her quarry leave
Could have been weeks or weekend.
However long it takes to conceive.
Bedlamite
Street front restaurant
And salons.
The boulevard heavy heady
With heavy souls.
I am the Bedlamite.
Hearty Boys on hand.
I’d been inside the establishment.
I send my man ahead.
My fame goes further than
What lineage could.
The girl for the greater good.
A sweeter creature
The Gods could not make.
By dawn the
Conflagration is over.
The search for survivors
Into night.
The mother pleads for the girl.
The gods have their spite.
“Send the girl outside.”
Chased from the east
And Nashua Point settled.
A grand estate
At the back of it a cliff
A rugged road into the city
And yet traverse it.
I am the Bedlamite.
It’s been a matter of months.
My infamy goes further
Than lineage could.
The girl for the greater good.
Back and forth with baskets of food.
Anyone instead
I send my man ahead.
“Send the girl outside.”
Matters not about the gunmen.
Dawn the conflagration is over.
The search for survivors into the night.
The High Priest(ess) pleads for the girl.
The Gods have their spite.
White Dot An Ebony Canvas
The elder girl says
It’s natural.
When the adrenaline
Dies down
All fall down.
White dot.
A black background.
I am the night’s regent.
The very reason
The discord in the streets.
Keep it beyond the intended hour.
Until the candelabra
Burns out.
The elder girl
Says it’s natural.
The adrenaline
Dies down
All fall down.
It is at the lady’s
suggestion.
And spare not
The vigor that makes for
Such art.
White dots
On ebony canvas.
Kindness Of Strangers
Names and places
Are changed
For the innocent
As yet there are none.
Speak of it and
Make I clarion.
This is my bent.
Names and places
Have been changed
For the innocent.
It is said is in the eyes
Of the beholder.
Speak to it and
make it clarion.
It was sweet when
We held hands
And lie close.
Am I your quarry
Or your host?
Am I your star or ghost?
What you give away
Then take back.
There is hardly life
After that.
Names of places
And state of mind.
Kindness of strangers.
Little Woman
The little woman
And for the games
Forsake her boys.
There is wine and wiser
Than her five feet.
Her dress cast about
As light material.
Forsake her boys
And concubine.
The further north
Contact will stiffen
her back.
Spread Eagle and
all that.
Little woman
She’s for the games
Of chance and chess.
Cast about her dress
As light material.
Make up for winter
And its lifelessness.
There are games of cards
And dice.
Festival to Dionysus.
There is wine and
wiser than her five feet.
The further north
The contact will stiffen
her back.
I didn’t start it
I didn’t start it
But see it better than
Death or ridiculous end.
Maters words do
What they should.
I read them then suicide.
I could’ve been good for something.
Sprinkle arsenic on my limes.
Roll it into my cigarettes.
I used to be good for good times.
Covetous in wanting
Deeper than it cut.
Put that in the book.
A feeling for morphine dreams.
I’m good for it the good doctor.
Suicide when I write the book.
When The Lights Go Out.
What began in the summer
It was the bloom all the sudden.
Swoon and unsubtle coo.
And do when the lights go out.
Activity around me at the center.
The flurry of limbs and I could
Be queen of Adams street.
Back road drivers
When the city is aflame
and the seas rise up.
See the circuit and
word gets around.
Talk of it on the sidewalk.
When they stalk the streets
At sun down.
Otherwise I am about the
Grand apartments.
The nights they tread.
When the lights go out
I am his pet.
The tower and its bowels
The neighborhood
And its redeemers.
Desperados in the streets.
In the evenings when
The hatred be heeded.
Comforts are few.
Could be hours before
the animal is through.
What begun in winter
Lion in the streets.
Beat the drum slowly
She is prone.
Hindquarters thick.
Talk of it on the sidewalks.
Revelry to it.
Give a man a handful
And a bloom all the sudden.
And do when the lights go out.
Ragamuffin
Campaign of a fashion.
She one up the notion she is common.
Wishing and waiting flutter,
her most fetching,
model confidant.
Making for patch of life as ragamuffin.
Test of tensile strength.
An enlightened urban uncivilized
untethered Phenom.
The girl is sycophant until the ask is great.
Come little man with scented vials.
You arrive to nocturne.
She cut a figure strange days and odd years.
A happy ending and Girl Friday.
Summer brought to crescendo.
A union of abstract rebellion.
Budding Lolita.
Stillness of the morning
speak in a whisper giving thanks.
Your approval is moving.
I get the spoils and what
sequential from the layers.
Parting all there is to
mix in the secretion.
Tinge of romance
and in exchange chivalrous.
invite me play nice.
They fancy opportunist.
Where he is and aint
and up in arms.
She’s perfectly turned.
A trope I can impress on the pose
as much as one man.
I scrubbed the lonely from the place.
Still musk of it.
This garden is nightmare.
She sew impressed,
Sound of laughter. Music.
Her most fetching.
The arena is supine.
Charged element spoke to life.
Stages of admiration
and denial run to frenzy.
I’m head and shoulders.
It turn burlesque.
A jagged fond.
Appreciate the macabre.
Lonely grow into conviction.
Repeat acts of wild
in your dynamism.
Thrill of congress.
Age and time.
Affection and touch.
Kindness and light.
The longer the lonely
the loss of self.
Guided hand and reverence.
The aftermath it kills.
Thrill in the foreboding
Magnetism to meekest of them.
Is prescient which fright
your chest heaving.
To the sporting of them
I am the bane of the citizenry.
The environs rake and hiss false progressives
when summer swing of festival.
The boys are wilding.
Foresee I’m match with her pedigree.
Her high mind and the degrade to my face.
A slow moan to shriek of octave.
The lonely it echo.
A smile affable to baring teeth.
The grin is sardonic and my humble waning.
Bouquet of fatigue, sweat.
When it turn and eventual succumb.
The R.E.M. is real.
The R.E.M. I feel everything.
There is fete of which the fright commence.
It is point of order the nubile.
I’m living like she’s coming and I’ll be ready.
With clean sheets. Blankets.
Bath towel and wash cloth.
A chessboard.
Wine glasses.
Music. Poetry.
The bed will be warm the morning after.
The breakfast filling.
We start the day with the sun.
The sweet song of birds.
Sight of squirrels on rooftops.
An oasis from your world.
I’m the man for this cipher.
Make time for me and your cellars filled with life.
Imagine pain is fashion.
Tell her sister siren.
Cause Celebre.
There logic in the role.
I charge from the head.
Before the source, was sound.
A garden for everyone.
To the house I’m most likely.
I trade on third eye.
She’s tossed in the quick.
Impassioned guile and repeat.
She’s ample and warm.
Once more rollicking.
Given wear and when.
The order she trade on.
She want from the all day parade of the macabre.
The isolation and panic therein.
Social science of the modern rogue, I’m ordained.
One night of festival into nights of game bird.
The level of ours beyond material.
She count these months as vital.
A shared effort and sport.
The culmination of the nightmare.
Just the beast she need as guide into
the wicked and the potential end.
The all-day rain.
Muster affection in the strange.
Call for strange put forth.
The strange consummate
and the hour make the seek the more epic.
She in pose contort the both of them.
She draw from him in master stroke.
I am all the grit, almost volcanic.
The iconic parkway and the market.
And bewitch that cover the lack of humanity.
The stop and stare kind of hunger
distinct that wash over the senses.
Purveyors of fat on parade.
Account the strange in electricity.
Cessation of graces.
The craven what will, loose of the feminine.
All or nothing in one
glance you be mine.
Appreciate the worldly female.
She push forth with the raw bit.
A world of girls.
Vineyard with bed of roses.
They’re in and out
barefoot and light wear.
My smile sardonic
and she’ll never forget
thrill in the foreboding.
The lonely is dark.
I am the iteration of Bedlam.
Fool hardy.
Phobia and love in one man.
I’ve always been ugly.
I am these nights one
space to another.
Supine in pain.
Trade on that some night
your lonesome as mine.
Depth of the curious.
And the follies.
They drink and fight to pen
the death of the heroine.
What for a man but her everything?
The Seraphic, she’s tall tales.
Approach the killing as first love.
Complimentary awe of bird of prey.
She present the spectrum
and you feel some way.
When it was hers to proffer,
testimonial ripple.
She’s demonstrative.
A study in excess
the night is fluid.
The romantic as in idealist
make you sycophant.
The sometimes damsel.
The best of assets.
What filter in the story of the villain.
Machinations move mountains.
The standard the ---- mind.
The sun rise on the vessel
and water into wine.
The rub is conviction.
The lure fresh face.
A thing to effort.
I carry a yen.
The Keeper
If not maiden intended,
maiden in waiting.
Word to the Matriarch,
my return at dark.
I send my man for her things.
The disjointed spite the Bedlamite.
I covet the cover of clouds.
Talk of mad seasons,
the ides of which to fear.
As to my letters,
commonality in my ken.
Her words do what they should.
I suicide..
Morphine dreams little women.
There is wine and dress
cast about as light material.
Cards and dice until
the adrenaline dies down.
What cleave to us fall down.
Her exhalation sanguine.
Wind filter cool to the skin.
A beast reverence and disgust.
It is a scene, apt pupil.
Come from it benign until it don’t.
The cuckold give her direction.
The stink of ambition
the sculpted.
The narrows for the
damnable consumption.
I’m the want she want.
To everything your defiance.
A poets lot ceaseless.
She tribute to missive
she give life to.
Lord over it all
conventional heterosexual.
As she sex pot.
This commonality linger for longer.
Linen and little else.
The lines defined and varied woman.
In some quarters lauded charm alarm.
I’m just the wicked goose bump her skin.
Full lips and jinx.
The genesis the, to-do.
The pliant and flamboyant.
Prize in your diary.
Want for you erotic.
A mutual that make it art.
In this we’re candid.
Love is pestilence but timely
act of kindness.
Once in motion change
in social grace form consent.
Local wine. Local trick.
It don’t go but spit on it.
The rowdy in the house.
Virtue weaponized.
His way unrefined.
The surge in line
with happenstance.
The frighten she delight in.
We afternoon as lovers.
I am with cherubim
and the gallery of which she mimic.
The Bedlamite.
I am stranger to the order.
They Look to blame.
They cannot explain and
need not ceremony cross the threshold.
Seek love in the right light.
Furtherance the good life.
A kiss and with that we endeavor.
The measurable excess.
Trust I”m incorrigible.
I remember every then on.
Dream this over the top.
Age of inquisitive intimates.
The wind pick up as the cloud burst of a dream.
Gender roles in our frequence.
With that in motion one more in the fold.
The power of ten.
Enter the garden the vainglorious
live for the trick.
You keep your eyes for wolves.
Give him his win.
I want to be let.
Is discovery darling.
She determined ethereal.
My irregular her betterment.
I’m as thirsty as in wonder.
Just the age to by stand the will and won’t.
The intermittent optimist.
What boundaries ain’t bound.
Vanity she couldn’t sate is sex you’re after.
A tease of goods.
You’re comfortable in robes.
Alight the intimate, the loyal foil.
I want un-orthodox.
A warmth dream lover.
Sunday come calling.
Streets is wet and windy.
There always roles.
See your mind from cuckold.
Figures barefoot in the reeds.
Companion is currency.
My fidelity drive by winter.
The weapon of your spark
I’ve felt the charms her disparate.
She fancy me she hadn’t thought but let me.
Tinge of romance and I’m obliged.
How chivalrous she don’t fight me invite me.
I’ve tapped wavelength.
Cast bigger shadow than subsequent.
She’s pure velvet.
The place is for stage.
Run about my orbit, this is wonderland.
Companion in space.
Offer self and take same time.
She love hard given to direct her and is torrid.
Congregants of a mind untold unpredictable
who better and why?
Tug of serotonin measure increment.
To everything your weird science.
Wind whip of which swirl of sentiment.
Bedlam in the midst.
Macabre and dreadnaught.
She is fury, now kitsch. She persist.
She give life to introspect.
The horror of hunger,
grasping best they could.
A cadre enlightened unconventional heterosexual.
Thrill to death.
Dress is meaning and beneath that is grimace.
The lonely is now categorical.
She charm the thing.
The egoist champion your profile.
I and my partisan
trip the light mind bending
Over the shoulder euphoria.
Magic man my exotic notes.
Day dream of you wild stylized.
Material notion of success
part of the tome.
The body unencumbered.
Bide that front of mind.
The need prescient
lost on me.
The context a dear figure.
Rain accelerate the day on.
Is classic dark days.
Rain is old bones lover.
Siren in wanting.
Suffer dullards finger her
threadbare garments.
Hers leavings hold you to me.
Is cold and stark but good.
Muddy water
run aground.
Inner thigh wolven.
She is handsome
and well settled
the little room.
Bed and books.
Immerse in poetry.
The closeness of the room.
Flag of the resistance.
All around menace
Bedlam.
Urban legend.
Her’s melancholia about me
Is for her life this why.
I am established all the
places you go.
All amenities afforded.
With yours coloring
I’d spoil you through.
Period dress they found her
render her prone.
I press the hallway
when mania.
I’m nights recounting such.
Creep the Grand Tower.
Mine inelegant win her over.
I have her’s confidence and
times is close quarters.
Yon light from the Gods
as we in the beat.
A pulse made craven.
Low light and appearance
walking on air.
Find a bard and you give over.
You're that change all
stricture love.
Her figure timeless.
It come to a head.
The rain drag the window.
Leave to me sentiment.
The skies are such color.
Pure exotic of a mind.
She damsel in straits
assume is any moment.
Whatever tread she is excited.
She craven as I.
All the muster from youth.
Presume you same.
I’m which you’re entitle.
Your familiar what end?
Algorithm
Your overture about wine
and this fellow likes wine
and the conversation becomes
what is your favorite wine?
And we match over wine.
I’m outside your sphere
but for the algorithm.
One petty or another.
How smart you are.
Just that quick unmatched.
I haven’t chariot
or wage for your grace.
Save Yourself
All the wonder loosed
on strong wine.
Keep your grimace throughout.
The eventual macabre compel
her spree was power given to me.
None encumbrance
short pulling hair.
I’m Mad Hatter.
Let her tell it,
Is guile we like this.
I’m heavy weight
ain't outdone.
Bit of carouse
I tear her gown.
Run out in the
garden without robe.
Hold hope the lonely pass.
The fates are,
there is pain.
She’s fun and games
like prize is her life.
I presume upon yours.
I’m willing partner all things.
I’m cause how it was.
Elder girl put me on it.
All the best ritual.
Mine is sea side death spiral.
Inestimable ardor great shakes.
These days of melancholy.
Immerse in the wash of skin.
Your begin and end.
The air is charged and we’re in unison.
There citadel for this.
Ruins by now.
Old soul no doubt.
"I love like this,"
Spoke the bard and the
subsequent bacchanal.
The sudden end is rain.
The romanticism.
The sardonic.
The new to do
and I’ve been it.
Make her a
fixture for a spin.
The wash of the morning.
Your breath on my neck.
She’s head to toe
press of flesh.
She sweep in like
reverence.
All the more
the structure sway.
second wind.
Time for us now when time
you don’t minding.
For this we’re friends.
The life of which
your best life
and shot in the dark
make next wife.
I’m never more eligible.
They could imagine.
You are who you was, love.
The morning after
shuffle between us.
Life of which
is your best life.
There is life.
The eye is over and
hardly breathe.
I’m like I was and
she grave towards me.
The visions prescient.
There is lumber and
precious metals.
Tourism.
Wealthy archipelago.
Tropical Eden
divided loyalty.
The heavy handed Banton
the voyeur of Franco.
Siren and vamp.
Who benefit is fickle
would favor
what I’m capable
until I’m not.
Fall from grace as to
embrace it fully.
You dress for me
once in her life.
I know with her shoulders.
You want used to me.
All the role play.
Eyes wide yours
tell tale prerogative.
I’m disparate wretch.
General alarm:
there will be blood.
The pall of the metropolitan
is deep and wide.
Sun light dust. Flies.
How now consecutive hours.
I know with her shoulders.
Hardly creature comforts.
Her leavings
on the arena.
I bird dog her
when the games up.
Mutual tension apt flesh.
I Know You
I know you where and when.
Your brash and hands on.
Meanwhile what it feel like?
With the music and the lights.
She look like she should be one.
As the music keep on.
Feed the need to feed on.
Happens I’m marked from jump.
Suppose she suppose
I’m not alone.
Like she entitle
I’m her bone.
What it feel like
with the mood and the hype.
The fight or flight.
The when and where and times.
Hands on.
Your hands they press your
close to the vest.
Some wicked she endure
and keep her virgin.
Mad Season
I still write letters.
Talk of mad seasons.
The ides of which
To fear the tides.
When she’s had enough
A stern response.
A woman of her station.
I take to her dreams.
Preferably a place
Pleasing to the both of us.
A slight disruption
In your dress.
A sibling in her stead.
Fly in and out again.
The elder girl.
As to my letters
The younger kin
She finds commonality
In my ken.
It is the middle girl
The pick of the litter.
I still write letters.
Talk of seasons mad.
And the leaves cast about
The house depictions in the raw.
Runabouts. When she’s
Had enough a stern response.
A woman of her station.
A sibling in her stead.
City Of Sun
City of sun
North by northwest.
It takes money
To make money.
Even a paupers nest.
City of sun but
Shooters at night.
Lightning and flood.
City sentimentalists
Up in arms.
The warring tribes.
Triage in the parks.
99 percenters go without.
Shout down the King’s men.
Before they set upon them.
I covet the covers of clouds.
Cool my ardor through.
For you my ardor.
City of whirlwinds
And golden coasts.
City of segregates
Where unwanted
I don’t go.
Beg borrow and steal
To be at my best.
It takes money
To make money.
Even a paupers nest.
Or rather poach as
A matter of pride.
My meager wages
You’re unsatisfied.
Disenchanted then
What is a city without
Like me?
Due comfort is unlikely.
Bad Men
There are bad men
In the building.
Pistol whipping.
In through the back door.
They come out in gowns
After the uproar.
There are bad men.
Her things have
Been tampered with.
Rifle through
Package and parcel.
Letters well wishing
And cash gifts.
Bad men about
Their ill will.
There’s still a drought.
Bring them from their district.
Ignore the counsel
Of your escort
And walk the gauntlet.
Driver
When the seas rise up.
The ides of the season.
Lions in the streets
And the grinding of bones.
Venture into the heart of it.
The conflagration
Through Albemarle.
The valley is burning.
Couple up as the path
Of the storm long quoted.
Put the city behind us
Drive fast.
There I am
My summer skin
The winter bore.
Time again
Like time before.
That time again
I crease your door.
Mine is love
But promise nothing.
My arrival, suffer my sight.
As the heavens dispense
That mine is love
But promise nothing.
What the winter bore
Corpuscle taut.
What started ’19 was not
At the end of a gun.
Seasons with her schisms.
Catch her with an audience
The environment stays hot.
Native Tongue
No shame in it.
Pick myself up
Without word for it
In native tongue.
If not the maiden intended
A maiden in waiting.
No shame in it.
Word to the Matriarch.
“I will return at dark.
Then send my man
In the morning for her things.”
If not the maiden intended
A maiden in waiting.”
The High Priests say
No word comes
A tacit admission.
The uprising.
The disjointed
Nashua Point.
And the like minded
Put fire to the Bedlamite
That even the Queen speaks
Ill of her son.
Without word for it
In native tongue.
Letters
Worthy of letters
Of my deportment.
Proper speak.
Not black enough
But too much to be useful.
Who am I to be loyal to?
Certainly no member
Of the crown.
I will let you down.
Something of me not yet cold.
This talk of lovers and bards.
His verse are fancy words.
Hardly those of legend.
Of better men.
Restless and stark.
Common versus remarkable.
Who am I to be loyal to?
Certainly no member of the crown.
I will let you down.
Tramp
Once inside
Her inner tramp.
Low light
And space enough.
Greeted by a cross wind
From the portico.
The appearance
Of walking on air.
The screen door
Between them.
Heavy on the back stairs.
The air with its redolence.
Lamb.
Son
She’s as black as coal
And taste just so.
Never much in stature
And disregard.
The walls have ears.
Have no fear for future days.
Or the sins of the father
Visited upon the son.
Skin as black as coal
And her ways just so.
Not one for preening.
Disregard for the
walls have ears.
Have no fear for future years.
It is the son the one
You remember not.
Says he loved a girl
Then she was gone.
Made that threat to me once.
Beg your pardon
You fancy is showing.
A Thousand Kisses Deep
A thousand kisses deep
And later in the evening.
Wonder how she can sleep?
Her exhalation sanguine.
Her eyelids aflutter.
Her hearts break
Won’t accept another.
A thousand kisses deep
A thousand and one.
Whatever cleaves to us
Has fallen down.
White light bright
through curtains.
Catching wind to filter
The cool to our skin.
A thousand kisses deep
And one for abdication.
The radiator roars
A dragon.
Loud and angry.
The radiator is old
as the building is old.
The windows rattling.
The wind its growl.
At once very hot
and then cold.
I have notions of
entertaining a woman.
I have heard laughter
in the building.
At times derisive.
Otherwise the only sound
is the leviathan.
The creature is old
as the building.
At once very hot
then cold.
I have notions on
loving a woman
I have seen it
in the streets but she wont
come home with me.
The creature is old
as the building.
At once very hot
then cold.
