Once

Hard listening

inside the rain and windows fleeting curtain circles

the rich burnings that log the flame spliced

heavily to draw its flickers to

why we stoop to grimace the snaps of the bud dry

flamed licked that blue foiled crisp

that asks the unkind flint

why within the myth that makes ancient

the silence beckoning shard taunt memories

and its kin of tales?

Where do we run for whispers that offer stories of night

where stars are shared to

navigate the dark intimacy of light ?

When does the winding of time recoil

if not to spit-burn the singed carpet?

beneath in dreams where we care for

the unforgiving islands to desert the past

to renounce our measure

to the outcast ?

This clasp of smoked-raked reason

can't resist the haul over our own coals of wretched concession

or our loving failure to prevent our cheapened exit from jeopardy

or not verse calm notes of solace or consolation or re-tuning

either by flight or mock feilty but callous spinelessness

that collect and profit from emanation of beams of darkness

into our collapsed hollow

that has us hiding in plain and simple

as we pile on more words of firewood

to ignite the embers of fondness

for our neighbours of trivia