Twilight:
only immortals know
that all must die;
within the evasion
of atmosphere
steals a shadow:
the key turns in the lock.

Somewhere the wind is rising.


In your album is a painting,
like a half-remembered dream:
a phantom figure,
washing a phantom treasure
in a phantom stream.

'Never admit you were wrong, ' it said,
'the Dance is worth your head
on a silver platter.'

Somewhere you shook its hand.

'Do it again, ' says the hunger;
though it's lost its savor, it says,
'If you don't,
they can do it to you.'

Let expectations pass,
your dying is your own affair;
the endless river
washes away the embers
of ancestral fires:
the decisions were yours,
even the decisions
not to decide.

You wear the face you fear.

The matron's shoulder-bag
provides a remedy
for common crime:
choosing the logic of desire,
the dance not partner to the Song;
greed's tunnel vision
plunges into peripheral darkness,
consequence:

(is it a circle?
I thought it was a circle
(oh, that's right!)
not sane on this side
the wheel comes apart -

Claim the tree