The Sidewalk

Ran out

Disappeared into a

Phalanx of

Tree roots

And sod

The once clear path

Now

Either an impediment to

Progress

Or a tangle of endless

Possibilities

Bow

Before the image not

Graven

But morphing

You have opened my eyes

To a dark

Room

My fealty is my

Voice

Make me good

Make me

Good

But don't make me

Love

If I Took the Long Way Home

Would evening fold its

Blanket skies

The same

As if I'd hurried by

Or meadows golden mandate

Pause

'Til slipping 'neath the

Misty cloth

Of muslin white

Should I delay?

If still the voice of thrush

Gives way

To songs the hosts of night

Purvey

It will not be for me they call

But for my God

Who sees it

All

Beaten

The breath out of this

I've wrung its

Neck

Capped its knees

Snapped its

Spine

And watched it crumple

To the ground

In a lifeless

Pile

Of words

Modern Times

I see my reflection in

The shiny

New sentiment

Pieces of eras in

Retro-fit

Renaissance without

Reformation

All the engineers

Are now in

Finance

Take out an ad

On the back of a

Twenty

We'll make everyone

Great again

With

The prosthetic hand

That pats us on the

Back

The Enlightenment of Frederick T. Banks

 

It came in the car

As he sat at the light

A curtain was lifted

In the lane to turn right

The bulb clicked

The bell rang

Eureka was said

(Not with a sound, but inside of his head)

The fog was dispersed

The cobwebs dispelled

A feeling of confidence

Started to swell

Then the light turned to green

And the radio played

A song he had loved once

way back-in-the-day

And leaving the corner

Of Market and Faire

Frederick T. Banks

Left enlightenment there

Winter Beach

Attracts the few

Who have embraced

Aloneness

Who've come to

Watch

White

Cambered waves

Against the wind's relentless

Nettles

Who marvel at the pier

Fenced by slats of

Icicles

And the exchange of

Sand and snow

Below a hopeless slate

Gray sky

The sirens

Whisper

In small crescendos

A frozen soul

Thawed

By majesty