DeLacus

Night has lost its meaning - the dapple of the sky curled under wings; and the moon hanging by a beam just out our window. Stars are lost and Orion has fled our orbit - autumn’s bleak sigh and song lingering till dawn.

She wore him like winter - dull pants and socks, jacket spun like sleet - cold as a cistern. Jacket buttons - dull beatitudes mumbled by homeless ashes and those too lost to breathe. And she shook him off - dropped him to the floor; all his shadows sighing with his weight, collapsing in upon her.

A frosty rime has covered all; Blackened branches and ice enthrall. Autumn’s embers set alight, Grow and rage against the night. They drink the cold bottled blue, Winters bleak and breathless hue. A frosty rime has covered all Blackened branches and ice enthrall.

We walk past the calibrators, eyes  almost averted - nothing uttered, and contemplate the stupidity of hate. We hold our breath near the piles of shoes and the boxcar, wondering who escaped and how they managed to not feel too alone. Tongues tied up in disbelief as air escapes the room. No one even has a pin to drop and music is another world. All you think you know or want to say is sucked into the belly of space, as if terrified to repeat. And six million voices fall in the ashes underneath our feet.

The darkness was his closest friend. He’d sleep and breathe and feed on it. Eschewed the light and ways of men. His soul was cold and lonely lit, Left waning till the weary end. He’d sleep and breathe and feed on it - Made it a lover bold and fair. His soul was cold and lonely lit. She sold her heart and laid it bare To him for feasting, bit by bit.

Lovely Laurie Lavamore Hones her hatchet near the door. Her blistered blade carves the shade, Scarring souls from nave to glade. The preachers pate cleaved  in two. Her sister’s smile knowing who Peeled and cut the gluttons gut, Gleaming glut of entrails jut. Laurie loved her new found shame, Wore it like a lepers mane. Smiled and said ,”The bugger’s dead”. Darkest dread where demons tread.

She sinks beneath a darkling wave When no one sees the boat slip out. The tattered sails that flay about Drag her to a watery grave And now she roams the shores near home, Gathering stars and souls as slaves Taunting the sailors hearts with doubts She sinks beneath a darkling wave

I am the lost and final hanging man, That love worn card you deal beneath the root. You place me on a dark and looming land With a gilded noose slipped around my foot. Silver coins tossed, betrayed against the sand, A final kiss that finds its way to roost. And you shall eat and swallow all my sins And spin the earth where simple men begin.

A thin castle scratching the landscape, stately home of old blood and tufted chairs. Portraits gone astray and dog's dusty carcass guarding the halls. Empty museums, bones in the foyer welcoming me to not touch paintings or vases from some unknown dynasty - one mummy watching. Botanical splendor - a smashed greenhouse window sucking the sunlight by my feet; wing tipped begonia and angels in the dust rattle clay pots, their dusky red fingers poking holes in the slipstream.

The moon is an amulet,   filigree and opal, that once caressed your throat - a silver disc that stole the sun from Olympus. Now it graces your wrist or adorns you hips in a shiver of song, full and inviting as summer plums.