A Campus Walk

I sail through the dark,
Passing from sea to sea;
Oceans of concrete, still,
Reflecting the lights of the moons
Suspended in cages of glass.
Then, I come to an imprisoned sun,
Illuminating the black water with an orange glow
As warm as the light of a fire,
But not nearly so violent.
It invites me,
Drawing me in with the gravity of its beauty.
And I stop beneath it,
Where my friend awaits me in her ship of rubber.

The Black Rider

A man, dressed in black rides into the town.
He sits upon a nightmare colored stead,
His face obscured by hi black woolen cloak.
He enters the town with the setting sun,
Bringing with him the cold and dark of night.
The blackness of the night enveloping--
A shade, taking the town into its folds.
The black rider is met by a lone knight,
Who he beheads with one swing of his sword,
Leaving the knight to fall to ground behind.
And so it was for all the rider passed,
Either death by steel or by pestilence.
And thus he made his way out of the town,
Leaving it a lifeless set of houses.

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

There is a man in a gray flannel suit.
He works in  the city from nine to five,
In a plain rectangular cubicle.
He works for a corporate commission,
Taking the metro train five days a week,
To slave away on a QWERTY keyboard.

The man in the suit has a family.
He has a pretty young wife named Ilene,
Who he had been seeing since seventeen.
They were sweethearts through high school and college,
Marrying June, after graduation.
They have a small little girl named Sarah.
Sarah has her father's brown chestnut hair,
And her mother's glinting bluish-green eyes.
She has her father's curiosity,
And her mother's compassion and kindness.

The Man and his wife and daughter lived in,
The suburbs of the city were he worked.
They lived in a blue-white Levvittown house,
With a large green-grass lawn and a driveway.
The two story house has a large garage,
Were there is a gray Volkswagon Jetta.
They have a chocolate lab named Sadie,
And a calico cat named Liberty.
Here the man and his wife and daughter live.
Together they are gay, living happy.

At least, that is what an outsider sees.
They wife and daughter are happy, not he.
He lives in a constant state of sadness.
He is ill with a disease of the mind.
A terrible sickness--a depression.
For years and years he hid it well,
Continuing on for his wife and kid.
But one Tuesday it all became too much.
And so instead of going to work he
Waited for his family to leave the house.
He ducked into the garage as they left.
Grabbing some rope and a small step-ladder,
He fashioned for himself a hangman's noose,
And kicked the ladder out from under him.

They found him there a few hours later,
Swaying ever so slightly back and forth,
To the horror of his young, little girl.
A crumpled note, the only thing he left.
He said it was not their fault, it was his.
He said that he loved them but he couldn't
Continue on living in agony.
He said that this was the only way he
Thought could finally give him a respite.

For years and years Sarah was sad, angry.
She was furious with her dead father,
Thinking that he was a selfish person.
Blaming him for everything bad happening.
She stayed in this state of anger until
She was a woman of twenty seven.
Her rage destroyed all her relationships,
And drove her to a deep, deep depression.
But when she was twenty seven years old,
She finally realized she needed
To come to terms with what her father did.

So Sarah sought help with a therapist,
For the first time since that day
Sharing all of her bottled emotions.
Sarah looked deep inside of herself to grasp,
Why her father killed himself that fateful day.
And eventually she understood it,
Able to move on, forgiving the man.
Able to live outside of his shadow.
The man who once wore a gray flannel suit

One Day

One day you and I will look together,
Back on everything that has happened.
One day we will sit together and laugh,
Knocking back a few cold Indianas,
And we'll realize how silly this is,
And you'll forgive me for what I have done.
But that day is not today Baby Cakes.
Which is why you are sleeping on the bed,
And I am sleeping out here on the couch.
I hope that that one day comes really soon!

The Shower Walk

I twist the faucet of the water off,
Throwing my dishrag into the white sink.
In the front of the booth people part,
Jamming to beats much like those of the Dead.
I exit the kitchen, making my way
Behind the stage on a narrow trail,
Passing through a circle of smokers,
I make my way to my one-person tent.
I grab my towel and a change of clothes,
And start my adventure to the showers.

I weave my way through the crowd of dancers,
Leaving the pocket of people and noise,
I find myself on the main pathway.
As I make my way from the crowded booth,
The sounds of drums and guitars quickly fade,
As does the ambient light of lanterns,
Leaving only the occasional flames
of scattered beeswax candles and torches.
Unlike the booth, the main pathway is sparse.
Every once and a while there are
Small clumps of people talking or dancing,
But they are nothing like that of my booth.

Having forgotten to bring my own light
I had to make my way by memory.
After walking over Jill's crossing,
I came upon a schizophrenic light.
Hundreds of small green lasers quickly danced,
Moving in random patterns on the ground,
Cast from a large fir tree above the path.

Continuing on, I pass by a rave,
One with no noise. People dancing. Silent.
There shone several colored flashing lights,
The only disturbances of the night.

After the rave of silence come I on,
A stretch of blackness, no lanterns in sight.
The stars and moon blotted out by the trees.
I could hear whispers from people unseen,
And the ramblings of a drunken man.
I walked for a time on this darkest path,
Having no sense of smell or sight or sound,
Feeling only my feet upon the path.
Aching from their continuous labor.

Finally, I reached the end of the dark,
Finding myself in an open meadow.
Here the heavens above gave light to man.
Many small clusters of friends and strangers,
Some are engaged in small conversations,
While others make passionate, moonlit love.
It is a wondrous place, suspended.
The laws of time and space having no sway.

Just a bit past the beautiful meadow,
I finally reached my destination.
I walk up to an old, smiling woman.
I hand to her one of my work vouchers,
And put my things in a wooden cubby,
And then I step up to a shower head,
Twisting the faucet on, letting water--
Water that is clean and warm,
Flow over my naked, dusty body.

A Summer's Afternoon in Chela Mela

The sun was high in the clear azure sky.
I sat in the middle of a grass field,
Under the shadow cast by a large oak,
The large oak that I was leaning against.
The summer sun brought a sweltering heat,
That was relieved only by a cool breeze.
And on this Summer's afternoon sat I,
With a journal in one of my two hands,
And a trusty old Bic in the other.
It was simply too nice to try to write,
All of my thoughts turnéd into a mush,
Like that of my mom's homemade applesauce.
Resistance was futile, that I could see.
So I gave into the warm Summer's day,
Closing the lids of my eyes, feeling peace.

The Man and the Wall

He stood apart from the group, cell phone pressed against his head.
Everyone is smiling and laughing, except him.
His face was scrunched. His teeth grit. Anger flashed in his eyes.
He hung up his phone, shoving it in his pocket as he stormed outside.
In a fit of rage, he turned and slammed his fist into the wall.
Almost instantly he realized the mistake that he made.