sad post-harvest paddy field heart
lost in mammoty-memory
garden of a single firefly
of unmistakable blink
a once-a-century gasp
takes me to a mountain top
and winter gusts
powder on black boughs
a hesitant moon
hanging on a wire
boot-made pathways
to a lamp post and nowhere
store-lights dulled
in hard coffee stupor;
I've wandered
like mendicant
and a de-fanged savage
decorated with a wilted flower
and a frayed manuscript
a thousand pages
unvisited by word
and now
carrying a reservoir
of madness and ink
breath enough to
bend history back
to innocence and love
I cannot write
or speak.
garden of a single firefly
of unmistakable blink
a once-a-century gasp
takes me to a mountain top
and winter gusts
powder on black boughs
a hesitant moon
hanging on a wire
boot-made pathways
to a lamp post and nowhere
store-lights dulled
in hard coffee stupor;
I've wandered
like mendicant
and a de-fanged savage
decorated with a wilted flower
and a frayed manuscript
a thousand pages
unvisited by word
and now
carrying a reservoir
of madness and ink
breath enough to
bend history back
to innocence and love
I cannot write
or speak.
