Late at night in my younger years,
my father woke me in the middle
of the darkest of nights.
A Goliathic shadow, he
placed his hand where a father’s
hand rests– the world passes from
a man’s shoulders.
He pointed up to the dancing lights in the sky…
I saw and whispered, wondered-
So high above me, so far away-
so wondrous, and […]
_This Dust Was Once the Man,_
this rubble once the memories
of poems and bridges worked by your old hands
summers in their warmth, winters in their freeze.
But the passage of days and darkness
and these simple, penniless, joyless words
obscures the past like silt, and rest
rains cleansing amnesia on the hordes
what important musings writ upon the sand
now washed away […]
This is my ancient city, Rome,
beyond the stench of sour days, cowering below
the aged yellow dalliance of skeletons,
where thoughtful minds are loathe to pause,
hangs a solitary man upon a cross-
Sitting on the Palatine,
gazing down upon her ancient, mossy bones
something of a stirring, saturnine,
a spark of vestal flame unsettles me,
and the fading ghosts of history
encircle me […]
My prayers fell on your ears,
like single drops in a rainstorm.
I listened for your answer,
my eyes open, my body still,
my breath paused, expectant,
you lay silent, or when you spoke
you spoke with the voice of the hum
of living.
Why is it you call me to discover
a truth you know but cannot share? […]
Late at night, I value silence most of all,
the deep and calming quietude of darkness,
when the raging winds and clashing swords of my world
are quiet, and am I alone, I feel free.
In the sunlight I am thrust upon by thousands,
hands groping urgently for my attention, leaving me
no rest, and I am leaping from […]