---

Pacing ‘long le Pont des Arts
Peering o’er nightbound water –
Thou icy-thick and heaving force
Reminds me of my lover.
‘Twas a child of bubbly zeal
Swept up in boundless zest
For all of life, and life with her
Gurgled ‘long her petite chest.
Those eyes were two harmless whirlpools
Twisting my buoys ‘round
That floated on smart silken streams
Of Violet capping gown –
Still in mind those blackish ripples
Flow twixt a pliant nape
O’er surface, flat and calm,
Dousing with her shape.
She served me at a diner here
When we but two and twenty;
Scarce I come upon these banks
But unto hers came plenty.
“The spice of life,” she told me oft,
“Is newness in a glance;
C’est la vie, but to find
Exciting circumstance!”
We clamped our padlock on this bridge
And kissed under the sun
That clambered o’er sleepy mists
While Notre Dame rang on.
But now that lock has been removed,
And she, my love, expired,
Damned upstream by junkie lad
Whose drivel she admired
To leave me cold on Pont des Arts –
All her shores retract
Just as the twenty came before
Though I ignored this fact.
“The spice of life,” she told me then,
“Was pleasant in our time,
But now I must try something new
Since I myself must find.”
That river flowing endlessly
Will stop not for amor
Since I have long since found myself
In her…or so ‘twas thought before.
“C’est la vie, c’est la Seine,”
I mutter underbreath
Before I take the forward plunge,
Embraced in lover’s depths.

---

---

I’ve always wondered

The state

Of a sock

Left helpless on the side of the road.

Who left it there

And how

Could they

Continue without a sock on their foot?

Was it an accidental orphan

Left over

Fallen down

From a pile of unconscious laundry?

And there goes a Jeep

Smashing it

Blacking it

Sending the sock headlong to the curb.

Behold, this sad sorry sock

Violated

Ill-fated

To be abused so carelessly.

I step towards the limp rag

Compassionate

Reaching out

To liberate its perilous position.

“Retract your hand at once,

Knave!”

Spat out

The sock, recoiling from outstretched palm.

“What is your entitlement

To think

To look

Down upon my chosen situation?

I sneer at your pity

At caring

At heart

Of which I have no particular use.

Has a sock not the right

To live

To endure

In a situation it deems beneficial?

You keep to yours

And I

In wisdom

Will uphold my own set of tru-“

The defensive sock was silenced

Mid-sentence

Without warning

As a Corvette sped over its threads

And before my very eyes

An abrupt

Unraveling

Caught between wheel and pavement.

But was it any fault

Of the driver

Of my own

If the sock had ignored that fate?

Was the sock not wrong

In its choice

If the outcome

Led finitely to this particular moment?

I cannot think to answer

Such questions

And yet

I feel as though I should have done more.

After all, in reality,

A sock

Cannot walk

Without a foot to make it whole.

But still this goes to show

How difficult

How impossible

To understand the feelings of a sock without a foot.

---

---

In the center of an urban scene

Two men meet –

A deserted park their stage, with

Feathered audience.

Hardly glances traded twixt

Dull dead eyes

As they sag in heaps on rusted bench,

Bemoaning replies.

The elder fiddles with his briefcase

Worn with work –

The younger downs his coffee, spiked

For the work to come.

Both in business, both employed

Just to live

But the young will be like the old in time –

Destined to decay.

The coffee dribbles from his neck –

Old bones laugh

Until they pop out at the joint, which the

Youth restores intact.

Thanks are traded, smiles exchanged,

For the break –

To find another kindred spirit

Wandering, aimless.

“UHRAOORA, ROO ug!”

The more decrepit grunts a greet.

“Mura-shalla, booraluh.”

The younger nods, as to agree.

That bag of skin holds up the smokes

That sinewy mass provides a light

And there they sit

Upon that bench

Alike in will

Despite one’s hope

To logically end so many years ago.

Just two men despairing

– One, the future, one the past –

Yet neither knows a proper path

For making lives to last

Or, at least,

They knew it well but chose it not.

The elder crunches out his cig,

Rises – with an “Uck” –

Departs into the browning trees

With twisted branches, fading leaves,

And vanishes atop the breeze.

Our Remainder creaks his head to sides,

Follows suite –

But towards the other way instead,

Heading for the street.

There he joins the scufflers, working crowd,

All as one

Not understanding eachother or life –

Zombie brethren.

---

---

I hear the cat meowin’

Though he hit the sack –

Thought he went to kitty dreamland

Guess he’s still got things to pack.

I hear the cat meowin’

Out there in the wood –

Went wand’rin’ cross the railroad tracks

Since I told him that he should.

I hear the cat meowin’

In the fireplace –

He saw the flames there flickerin’

Lured ‘pon a sizzlin’ space.

I hear the cat meowin’

Down there in the lake –

Must’ve seen fish sleepin’ there

And to the depths did take.

I hear the cat meowin’

Six feet underground –

And the only thing more bone-chilling

Is the nearness of the sound.

I hear the cat meowin’

Out there in the hall –

I see his shadow stretching out

Hear soggy pawsteps fall.

I hear the cat meowin’

Clawing at my door –

The claws snap off in splinters since

He’s not living anymore.

I hear the cat meowin’

Perched upon my bed –

I might have gotten rid of him

But he’ll never leave my head –

Familiar purring for the dead.

---

---

When you look out

Into the night sky

And witness spectres

Flying fast by

You come to realize

With ghastly surprise –

Tonight is the dreaded All Hallows’ Eve.

Pumpkins carefully carved

With ghoulish grins,

Their glowing eyes follow

The passing crowd’s sins –

A dark presence is felt

A rank order is smelt

On this malignant All Hallows Eve.

Old gnarly trees

Groan, rustle, creak,

Branches stretch to ensnare

Those who dare sneak

Beneath their canopy,

Oaken dryad’s glee

Throughout this dastardly All Hallows Eve.

Moon crimson orange

Graves split open

Hands outstretched

Smoke lifts to Heaven

The whole Earth shakes

As it burns at the stake

Driven through its heart on All Hallows Eve.

With discerning eye

For the spiritual,

The Everyman screams –

Satanic ritual

Carried out perpetually

Beyond what stilted senses see

On the never-ending raucous that is All Hallows Eve.

---

---

I visit the cemetery
Scarlet evenings –
Maggots start to dance
When stone angels sing
Under Mausoleum lit
Pitch cats softly prowl
The barren trees rattle
From bass hooting of an owl –
Yet, something’s amiss…
Odds fish, what’s this?

Crackling beneath step
In orangeish Autumn gown
Six headstones faceflat –
Buried into sacred ground
As if to force a bow
Where man had fallen first
And, when Winter blows,
Subjugated miss the worst.
As if six feet under snow
Were any better way to go?

Markers sore wrinkled –
Three crosses, three plaques –
I push three upstanding
Until I pull my back.
Must leave the other three
Where they’ve fallen there
‘Cause everyday I be
Sole help anywhere.
My only question: how
Those plaques befell to now?

Could it be the spectres
Sighing in the crypt?
Demons screwing round
With wolfmen, guises stripped?
Parasites from pitchest space
Long dormant, now disturbed?
Or the inner beast of man
Who lusts for the perturbed?
To deter those ghouls
I disobey the rules.

I tip over graves I propped
Under the harvest moon –
To that chaotic eve
It might be called a boon;
Better those mounds a mess
Since darkness loves chaos
Than fix them up again
And cause that force to fuss.
On a cemetery’s ground
This hallowed dusk lasts all year round.

---

---

Have you ever heard that tune –
The tune of times gone by?
Like a cruel reminder of life
Before
During
After
You grew into your expanding mind.

It is an awakening of the soul,
A melody of memories,
An Angel descending
To guide
To rebuke
To inspire
The direction of your passions.

If you hear that tune, stop
And ponder your feelings
Regardless the thesis you hold
What
How
When
Your life begins its meaning.

---