▫️
This Is The Place
The door is barred.
The windows are all boarded up.
There is moss on the steps.
The grass is knee high and yellow.
The roof is caving in.
There are two old tire rims rusting away by the porch.
The dusty driveway is choked with wandering weeds.
This is the place we grew into.
This is the place we shrank from
when our lives fell into disrepair.
This is where we lived
when the paint was fresh
and the grass so goddamn green.
▫️
Last Standing
High, sprawling, and audacious in the sun,
older than the country it stands in,
bare boned against the November cold
wind whipped, stripped of its summer clothes,
the tree reaches the attention of every eye that passes,
commands respect by way of fact that it still stands,
resolute as a statue, welcoming the open sky,
the rain, the snow, the wind for yet another try
at tearing its broad grip from the hardening earth
branch by brittle branch, root by sinuous root.
It seems to be saying, come now, take your best shot,
I’m still here where the others are not.
▫️
When We Were Young
We weathered every storm
never stopping to consider how or why,
took what we were given
and knew not to ask for more,
did what we were told,
(sometimes grudgingly)
swallowed each and every lie,
couldn’t wait to be free.
Then one day we became our parents.
One day we became the lie,
repeating over and over
old programmed routines,
never trusting we could fly,
never imagining the day to come
when the only thing we’d wish for
was a time machine.
▫️
Writing On A Wall
After a photograph by Saul Leiter
Somewhere. Sometime.
Inner city America.
A vacant alleyway.
Mounds of refuse heaped along a wall.
Broken doors. Broken chairs.
Soggy newspapers lying in wait
for a cold slap of wind
to set them free.
Scrawled on the wall
above it all,
the pale naked word,
Repent.
▫️
Still Frame
Thunder on the bridge.
April in the air.
Lower the shutter speed.
Adjust the aperture.
Stand still against
the cold stinging mist.
Aim steady and shoot –
violence is captive to grace.
▫️
Eclipse
The great solar eclipse slipped
into history ever so quickly,
and even though my attempts
to photograph the event failed,
the sudden shift of light
is what I’ll always remember.
Twilight but not quite.
The way the entire yard transformed
into a Shyamalan film.
The way the air suddenly cooled.
The way the night creatures
poked their heads out
for a sheepish gander.
The lingering thought
that something extraordinary
has just transpired here,
from which these cardboard glasses
will be my only souvenir.
▫️
Intuition
It may be nothing.
It may be something
more than just an irritating itch
crawling around your brain.
Something unsettling.
Something chilling.
Something off from the start.
You can’t put your finger on it.
Can’t quite nail it down.
Can’t assign it a name.
But you know what you know, and so,
silently slip away.
▫️
Silence!
Silence!
Sharp as a razor,
pierces the noise
of the fight,
perforating the heart
of everything
you’ve yet to overcome,
the weapon of choice
for an ending,
void of forgiveness
or resolution
because it
has
no
voice.
▫️
Solo
Strumming in the dark,
a solitary candle flame the only spark
of light in the room where moody melody,
drifting incense, and thundering chords pour out.
The song has no words, needs no words,
for every emotion to be felt and heard
as the player plays, never looking up from the fretboard
where his fingers dance, glide and slide
with deft precision of movement and memory –
the rhythm, the timing, such mad variations
of levity and melancholy, the alchemy,
the artistry, as mysterious and holy
as that which moves the world.
▫️
The Weird Thing
The weird thing is things are getting weirder.
Yesterday I was a sane soul in a mad world, or so I thought.
It’s unsustainable.
Today when I part the blinds for a peak out my window
that same mad world is buzzing by.
Come join the frey, I hear a familiar voice say,
only this time, I don’t ask why.
Haunted Avenues 