STOP

Stop—red and unyielding, 
gluttony burns beneath the command.

The road does not argue, 
it simply waits for your next step.

New Smyrna Beach, Florida

Beneath the Rusted Sky

He sits in the space where nothing begins,
A man folded into himself,
his hands still, as if waiting to explain
what the world refuses to ask.

The shutters are closed, the light withdrawn,
and yet the graffiti hums—
a hymn of guilt, a language he cannot speak,
scribbled by ghosts who pass unnoticed.

Behind him, the city vanishes,
its weight pressed into his spine.
He is no longer afraid of falling;
the earth has already claimed him.

Is this the moment the world forgets him?
Or the moment he forgets the world?
The air thickens with questions,
each heavier than the silence they fill.

Kandy, Sri Lanka

Gull on Asphalt

Gull on Asphalt
it started with a crack of light, 
a wet push into the cold, and the sky—always the sky— 
waiting to swallow you whole.
you learned fast. 

claws on stone,
wings slicing the wind like knives.
you laughed at gravity,
but sickness hit like a sudden storm,
a sharp crack in the clear sky,
leaving you stunned, spiraling,
ground rushing up too fast to fight. 

one day the wind felt heavier, 
the horizon farther.
and then—this. 

blood on the pavement, 
feathers bent wrong, 
the sky doesn’t even care.

Portland, Maine

Dwayne’s Time Out Chair

Some cheap plastic piece of crap
sitting in the weeds,
leaning against a wall
that hasn’t seen a fresh coat in twenty years.

Dwayne—whoever the hell he is—
probably punched a hole in the drywall,
kicked the dog,
yelled at the neighbors for parking too close.
they stuck him out here
to sweat it out.

but now the chair’s alone,
just like the rest of us.

Geometry of Tension

Stretched skin against the abyssal black,
stitched by unseen hands,
tensions hum in silence,

holding stories of wind and weight.

The light grazes its surface,
a quilt of impermanence,
bound in fragility,
defiant against the void.

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Radios

The radios sit, Bakelite husks,
Colors dulled by decades of light—
Red, green, blue, once vivid enough
To brighten rooms that are empty now.

Time hums inside them still,
The slow, indifferent tick of hands
Marking minutes that carried news,
Ballroom songs, the war’s end.

Music spilled out in tidy portions,
Tuned to the shape of ordinary lives.
Now, they gather dust on shelves,
Perfect and mute, outliving us all.

Waltham, Massachusetts

Edges of Night

The slats—
angled ribs
against the night,

light drips through
like water slipping
between fingers.

Inside—
a chair, red,
a gesture of waiting.

Above it all,
the building listens,
holding its breath.

Brookline, Massachusetts

What Remains

The awning stretches forward,
thin steel bones,
holding the weight of absence.
A cracked line of pavement,
its edges curling upward,
a slow retreat
from purpose.

Weeds twist
between fractures,
their stubborn green
cutting through the gray,
a quiet defiance
unnoticed,
persistent.

The sky folds low,
soft with clouds—
no sun,
only a dim light
slipping across the surface,
settling into shadow.

What was here
is no longer here,
yet the space remembers,
waiting,
its silence
a language we
cannot yet speak.

Mount Laurel, New Jersey

Santa in the Corner

Standing steady above the bar,
A red glow against the geometry of walls,
Illuminated through his plastic skin,
Abiding warmth in the darkest nights.

Santa, unswerved amid chaos,
Beckons the timeless mirror of imagination,
Reflecting anticipation,
Bestowing rewards for those

Who sustain unwavering belief in the spirit of hope,
His gaze fixed on it all down below,
An emblem of steadfast persistence when
The season shifts from festivity to memory.

Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts

November 29, 2023 – 4:45 PM

The dark noise of longing,
this opaque path,
prickly thickets of desire.