Patron Saint of the (runofthe) Mill.

I have been finding letters

in the long languorous lines

left by the drips of paint

performing their tragic

comet trail before the altar of gravity

as they consume their own vitality

and I wonder how much this means

that I see the letters

and how the weight of itself has made them

run

what does my own mass compel

and in compelling burn

through this wax effigy of a frame

till I cry the end the end

and am done.

Perhaps they will find these letters

and watch the wax drops run.

Swan.

They whisper she's the princess

but she wears no jewel

and how her curls fly around

her thousand golden crowns

have escaped their bonds

and the day is almost gone.

A last moment

A long look

and oh the moon

always arrives too soon.

How the silver light falls

along the whispering lake

what a solemn shadow

your long neck makes.

Nonsense.

I'm off to find the Wizard

when I find him I shall ask

What was the point of all that brick

and can I take these glasses

OFF

with her head.

He cries and off he goes.

hand in hand hand in glove.

He and the Queen have found

something like love.

and lost something like

like reality.

But how their garden grows

and it goes in rows and rows

of rowdy roses and cockleshells

while the silver bells ring out nones

and no one is faster than the Knave

to steal the strawberry ones

what a tart

surprise to meet

instead of sweets

something so stark

ly swept clean

and still poor ella sweeps

the long marble stair

along with the nightingale

while Echo throws her back

copying out her notes

and slowly reality grows

into a pumpkin orange

and we all go to the ball

behind our glittering masks

and watch the Wizard and Queen

say nothing that they mean.

mad melody.

A terrible light

To see you gnashing your round white teeth

against the uneven ivory

to see you across the long wood

with your thrashing toes

scattered across the thrumming cords

and these chords have me bound

still in the silent holding of my sanity

as if to breath now would breach the sanctity

of all that keeps us both secure

with your fingers splayed across the keys

trying them each a hundred times

against the locked doors behind your teeth

and I'll watch them light up again and again

with your pink tongue scraping a signal

in the long half light

and rejected fall on each flat note

the answers scattered in black and white

the hundred hammers at your fingers

slam their way through the thick dusk

to land heavy and bitter upon the brass

ringing bare blasts of dissonance

to scatter through the busy room

that has just the two of us in it

you are not building a thing

but tearing with your heavy handed strikes a hole

into the wall for which the door

you cannot find the key among these keys

and so perhaps the noise whill make you one

will make you whole

So you strike and strike again

battering the echoes with the sound of their own doom

So come down love from the piano

Come down, I'll carry you home

Benediction

we cry among these iron hills

the light is building bars of darkness

above us and how they stretch

how to break the last strength

in our weary necks with looking.

the night falls like a lock

grinding across the long land

turned by an invisible hand

and we are each of us undone.

o mercy mercy me

I fled the long grey walls

to find a prison all my own

and how I hate the jailer the jailer

using my own fingers against me

so tight against my throat

so we come and we sing

somewhere someone

come with your key

come with your stone hard beard

come with all your fear

and set us free

come down moses

come on come on down

bless us bless us

with your lightning eyes

break back the heavy dark

and tell us tell us

be well love

you are well loved.

Night

How cold the world becomes
so quickly
Even dawn is kinder
with her cautious stretching
over the shelf of the horizon
and we are unafraid
because she has made her long magic
in our midst and we are all guilty with her.
The night does not need our guilt
to exonerate, to let her free.
She is hungry and so she eats
each of the blinking lights
from each shelflike window
and licking her lips flows down the streets
singing her hunger song
and we shiver leaning back into doorways
unsure
if we are willing to risk the walk
because when she is done
with each of the little lights
sucked dry the swinging bulbs
and crunched her way through streetlamps
then she turns and comes
for us
with our warm heavy mouths
all full of sound and song
and the scent of something strange
like fear and bravado and freedom
something so close to her hymn
and she is unsure of us
a lion stumbled upon kittens
who show her their slender claws
and scream their small wails
against the indignity of insignificance
and she lifts her giant paw for silence
or perhaps for solace.
She is the fearsome freedom
sweeping through the streets
and he who throws his fate with her
sings a song of hunger and fear
and son of night becomes free
How cold the world becomes
when standing against the night.

Till the Wind Returns

The eastern wind

clung to you

with small grasping hands

like a child suddenly afraid

I wondered what it knew

why it tied your hair so tight

across your shoulders

weaving a net knotted in ebony.

Why did it gather the dust

and scatter it to rest

along the edge of your feet

walls of temporary grace

and still it blew

O eastern wind what have you done?

What have you done with her

my careless love?

O eastern wind did you carry the song

that she listens to next to me

and I cannot hear?

She had the star light in her eyes

while I blinked against the moon

O eastern wind answer me

will she be returning soon?

My careless love with her careless eyes

and I that was so full

of all the cares of the heavy world

saw nothing of what she watched.

O eastern wind you have taken her away

in the dark of the wide night.

O eastern wind what have you done?

Lifting her aching wings

when all I've ever done

was build a path for her feet

weary day by weary day

and in a wild whirling night

she is gone.

O eastern wind my love is gone

my careless love has left

O eastern wind when she is done

will you carry her home?