Walking in the dark
I see faces, more like apparitions,
stretching themselves.

It descends upon hopes,
nagging and nailing with their voice
forlorn of time and fortune.

I unwilling to leave,
of such reality as the lost are.
Shades and no more, these visions,
coming with a touch of void
from years of inward loneliness and endurance.

This is no smoke-ridden corridor of dreams;
it is a sad time store
of little mirages.
With directions unforeseen, bewildering
my mind
will not stay.

Surely if not from pain,
art will deliver from feeling
while it purports the plausible,
teaching how not to feel and feel still,
lifted by your life of the distant past;
like a whip
of many intentions
and indefinite discipline.

Vita brevis, how true!  Run yet shorter!
Recalling the first ache that came with realization –
then the unattainable barely at hands!
(all mirage?)
Then greed, or bash, and monotonous intent,
then as a cool breeze
after long hibernation
this only.

* * *

That love.
Always a tad early, so sickening, too slow in forgiving,
too grandiose to be taken lightly in its excursions
or be understood with so much pain,
all but now swamped in dark bitter dismay,
coy in longing.

A devotee, an elect
of dreamlands, shallowlands, shorthandlands you see when
people start and talk.

A christian.  An atheist.  I was.  What do these words mean anyway?
Yes now face the both of these two unfaceable destinies.

I think they were afraid,
those who did rule too, inwardly.

Here's just cranky shit for you:
teach people to be right
before telling them what matters
(this much about care).

Little hope remains that were not stolen.
Hope should catch and carry you.

I'm being mean
from privileged position,
pushing that which others must lack?
So I see no hope.
Jesus talked not of hope, anyway.

Take your burden and follow me, he said.
Not a word about hope.
And I will give you my rest.


Those who would lay you load upon load
and let you manage it,
(oh you were all too willing)
motherpeople and handy candy goody-goo
how they would fritter me, would they, blank!
Be rather free,
and follow me.


* * *

Life is scarce,
a beauty beyond beauty.
Rush, thrush
after
and wing
to bash in simple light
of the poignant, bare humility.
And flee!