#idle steps

On these cold nights in middling March Where rainfall shivers to marrowed bone When the morning's run long as tall as the larch And the spirits and I, wake up and groan These chilling morrow’s in early false spring As I rise and I fall from and for needed sleep Foretold by aching joints and bodies tinnitus ring The sky above, so joins me and begins to weep I think of warmer places, people, times When fire flickered in mine eye Where bedside, I, beside myself sometimes Lays and finds myself all the warmer; why? For in your heart you placed me tender, there to keep me safe from chill and cold affair

American gothic Hot topic Play to the strengths of benefits of the microscopic We drink two percent but pay ninety-eight Standing in the ballot line, told again to wait Got my city smog-checked Still allowed to smoke ten feet from the door, Empty lots and children still coughing Homes are empty, apartments too Shelters flood like broken damns God damn – but not take that name in vain What a weathervane of the state of affairs The fifty-first, but just as unrepresented And like the rest, highly resented What incestious nation Constantly in debt and on probation American(‘t) have merriment For where it went I do not know This experiment I fear it lent it’s leniency Long ago

Drums call us to rise The morning, still dewy eyed But drums–drums call to us Surround us with their bass, their tremor Reaching out to us, adhan To wake and greet the overhead sun Anoint ourselves in thought and water Break: bread and fast and silence Laughter should fill these gaps Laughter is joy And joy is love And love is all there is When drums call to rise We rise; and with bowed heads and closed eyes Let laughter be the prayer

By the third, I’m a fourth of the way Past Robert Frosted divided highways Fatigued by the median, well meaning By now (March) should be – (What?) should I have Wintered, what lies ahead of this Whether I make it or not What will I make of this effort March, how I’ve missed you (cold) In embrace, I roll over in bed Face the wall, fearful disbelief, do not speak for me Weary is the road less traveled; all the same March may speak its mind & mood freely Unbound by the reins of convention The woods have not yet awoken Boughs most empty, snow Slow to green the bowry The year, nature, is slow to rise Frightful of the morning Is my reason to linger – shadow-eyed Reluctant to rise and greet springs’ sun Bright enough, burning, clearing snowed excuses Letting the ice slough off our hearts What else awakens in this warmth Buried body by body What (cold) lingers beyond the snowbed Onward March, I’ll meet you

The chain shirt i never wore is chafing How have i, of all warriors, not acquired Such heart rending loss Pierced, unadorned in chain What loss and fail, to bear no maile Weak to such serpentine kiss of love Slithering to bite me, Deaf to its baby rattled warning Yet without any protection I am suffer to infection sweet with soured dreaming Sweetly dreaming of that sandscored shirt That shirt of maile, i failed to find Wailed to bind to my raw skin Why should i venture into life unadorned Into the wild scorned by armors efficient and lithe Am I to pursue a wife, some lady to -wife to me Without so much as a gambeson, padded and protected Without any so much as a pin upon my breast Pierce me to the heart and stop Its toddering toddlering beating That is so heartenly beaten into my being Woven into fibers, links, and chained me to my goal Here i lay before love’s conquest Chafed, and bare before the pricks and needles That stitch fate and fortune Made and maddened ill with desire For a shirt made of wire And a love made for me

My bosses boss he talks and talks With stories long and winded Assurance had, poor man, his offer is rescinded Speak and speak, with shameful story walks Pass the torch to prideful men Who wander just as gusto How learned lords, who pity us although What offers made, returned, and then Why, oh moneyed man, do you lead with stuttered speech Unpracticed performance, poorly executed No food stamps, nor benefits, all actions muted Just words & words, I cannot eat these, leech! Sell my your spiel, your deceit of labour Waste my time, my energy even Never say yes, never say no; when– Is it us asking, you balk, poor men, assure All this effort to speak simply nothing Do you feel better for not offering a thing

Light radiates through the portal Flickering beacon of lightning Rippling with whirs and gigs Feeding into the vortex of sight This must lead to hell For why else does it make me linger In the darker hours of the night Gazing upon, as Tantalus must have, Objects of desire Untouchably

As a summer child I’d watch Crabapples fall from the tree Shake them loose as they came into season Surrounded by all that sweetness; wasted Grown sour – dropped far too soon Autumn & Winter rotted me And deprived me of that depravity Preserving my bittersweet ‘til Spring