I still expect your outline when i get into my bed

it's dark, the unmade bed is sleeping
Yet it's cold, and I'm not waking anybody up
no sleepy arms to pull me in and take my worries
and sorrows away somewhere forgotten

just me and my mind
while i welcome it - this pressure, mounting unabated
Forces me to write, to poetry
Loneliness, my oldest muse, does not wrinkle
she does not sag. she does not worry about tomorrow
or about me. Her silence cuts holes in the memories i have
of voices of lovers, of all the words I do not remember
anyone ever saying
I listen to my mind playing dress-up in my memories

Forging a new make-believe memento from the shrapnel of the past.
Still waiting for the fuse to reach it's final destination. Braced for impact.

hunched over and tense
Like a shell-shocked hunchback of the Notre Dame;
Our lady time, whittling away at a tree trunk
for a boat to take us over
biding her while as the blades carve cuts deep into the flesh
that leave their mark - the scarred leather tans from hide, to bark

waiting for a spark

may we go up in smoke will all our answers
may we listen to the moon
when she whispers to keep quiet;
she knows, she has been round this way before
that all the men she's known
were born, were grown
to live in her shadow