I Can't Sleep

Was/Past/Gone called on the earpiece, forcing the recall of over-and-done times, and I clutched up with dread and irritation and curiousity. It had been several years since we last spoke.

Was/Past/Gone has issues, problems, a pronounced denoument these days...guess she wanted to share it with me. Or she was reaching out, grasping outward to connect to someone who can aid her, solve her mysteries, make her do better. I sure as hell wasn't the savior since she had, frankly, become the unforgiven and forgotten.

But I didn't sleep well for two nights thinking of my past days with a vocal ghost. I didn't know how to feel; did I react and involve myself in something that was unsolveable by me? Did I act as a soft shoulder, a listener? Who knows, not me, not with the swirling of the past gliding by me like moths or spiders as I cast shadows against my porch walls for late-night, troubled cigarettes.

The broken engine coughs to life, without a key in the ignition, and pleads for your attention to aid it...from a distant junkyard.

Clueless

Left at Love.
Twenty paces right to Detachment.
Plot a line of 180 degrees.
And close your eyes,
Plodding haphazard, needy arms extended.
Scream loudly until blood steadily
Seeps from fresh cuts.
Drawn to unknown places;
A fortune! Undiscovered.

Blank

I've got a way to silence you, to dismantle your vocal structures, your holographic reasoning.

I've got a blank card in this deck, worse than an Ace, more control than a 2 in Pres&Ass, not a spade or a color or a suit or a number. It is blank for a purpose; if I play this card you will be soon forgotten, blanked.

Evenings, Sundays, Calm

Hymnal falls open to "Amazing Grace"
Afternoon sunlight lazily paints
Stained glass memories
Amid quiet echoes;
My church and cornerstone.