Against Prejudice

I was in the midst
Of penning a poem
Against prejudice
When I made a remark of careless taste
Regarding the voice of the girl on the radio
And that is why my poem
Against prejudice
Will not now be written

Overcast, a Summary

I see it fit to give you fair warning.

In the future, however distant

There will be days, given infrequent

When the air is too cold to move

And puddles languish on the road

And the mountains have burrowed

Beneath their gray down comforters

And we will do the same

Meaning—

Forget your daily commute and stiff-backed chair

Forget my ringing phone and pressing matters

Shove the consequences beneath the pillow

Hold me close in lazy white seeping through the blinds

The air is not moving, and neither are we.

Such a Rain

Hair crowned by dewy rain at the point of molecule snowflakes

Hands deep within the shallow pockets like a mole hole

Stepping from the slick street onto the curb holds an unsteady weight

As though the concrete sand hungers for a greedy flagpole

I find myself set upon the long way home, serendipitous

Basking longer in the lunar-hued glow of Heaven’s will washed down

Brief hesitation, and I stoop to scoop up a handful of leaves

Tiny russet brown ones, curled like chocolate shavings on a cake

Cupped in my hand, the struts of a pale Noah’s ark about their ebbing fragility

They are safely borne to a new world in the name of memorabilia

For a day like this, with such a rain, such a mist on the mountains

Would be unjustly dealt with to receive no lasting memory

Unmoored

Would that I were unmoored

From the harbor which manufactures care

Would that I could halt the procession

From the dock to my decks of involved despair

Would that my hull was thickly built

Enough to weather the typhoons of change

Would that I could slip loose the rope

And drift, and drift, on hard waters away

The Nephilim

The nephilim came long ago

With saving grace in his sinuous veins

Consigned by light to lurk in dimness

In equal parts divine and damned

From first foot set on mortal soil

From first breath drawn, to be unnamed

With obeisance he resigned his freedom

Surrendered his wrists to dutiful chains

The gutter scum, his dwelling place

His warming fire, the heat of sin

Of higher planes than human refuse

He dwelt in silence amongst them

And with the roll of years, so soon

The shabby shell matched that within

A casualty to stay the course

Of Earth’s morally unsound spin

Untouchable by filth of years

He strode through changing alleyways

Seeking those whose every corrupted breath

Darkened the shine of mankind’s days

Predator imbued with divine right

He closed the reign of his unholy prey

Upon shoulders fortified for such a cause

He accepted the weight of the planet’s decay

Made of silk and velvet in choking pitch

It fits him well, the witching hour shroud

The blinding lack of heavenly light

Is sufficient for his iron crown

Prince of a doomsdayed race, he hunts

The darkness where atrocities prowl

And upon the marble of the sky

He carves tallymarks of years worn down

Upon street corners he can be seen

A tower amongst cottages of mortal forms

With the flawless visage of a brooding seraph

And battle scars his body marred

Yet beneath the wearied and shadowed brow

From spheres of brewing winter storms

He gazes upon his millennial charges

With a last late spark of celestial warmth

Sleepyhead

You are sprawled in a happy accident

Ankles still entangled with mine

My body is heavy with hard, companionable sleep

Yet I space the sheets and haul myself

Over onto the rise of your broad back

Tease the back of your neck

Much to your agreeable chagrin

Hold me responsible—hold me at all

I have been waiting for hours

For you to tell me good morning

October Velvet

Nothing satisfies the weary spirit

Such as the velvet of an October eve

Freckled by reticent sprinklings of rain

Which thicken like traffic on the ritual commute

Dull and murmuring from hours held on high

Cheeks of the sky flushed with the advances

Of a devilish chill, insistent, persuasive

Reflect on the browned mirror of the mountains

Color their dying eyes with a final surge of joy

Before the well-advanced annual condition claims the upper hand

The pearlescent opaque winter mists

Seep across nose and mouth at the peaks’ final breath

Cool the cheeks of the clouds into tones of frostbite

Remind raindrops of the cozy, homey quality

Of the final smack upon welcoming pavement

Massasoit’s charcoal figure, pensive, pipe in hand

Watches the sun sink into exhausted slumber

The furious rain slides down his nose and cloth folds

Twilight poses a challenge to sharp sightless eyes

Tacit, in memoriam he holds, as the autumn chill settles into his iron limbs