Early morning mind,
pristine, as sleep 
dissolves into sensation:
   the gentle tap-dance of rain,
   dogs stirring in their beds
      (the sleep of the just),
   summer breeze flowing through
      the screens, accompanied by
      a multifarious bouquet of
      birdsongs.


Pristine,
   before thought
   and a false certainty
   of attaching words
   to what appears
   and vanishes. 

 
 So much deep experience,
 peeking from the corner,
 not enough words,
 but to stay there
 anyway. 

 Drowning in fresh squeezed confusion
 with the intensity of a crippled heart,
 
 Dancing to paranoid surrender,
 choking on much useless talk,
 
 The vicious kilter of
 love gone awry,
 
 The world all gristle and ghosts,
 dirges lamenting the nothingness
 of it all,
 
 The nostalgia tattoo throbs
 in memories of the imagined promises
 that could never have been. 

 Rough sleeper,
 pummeled by the poor timing
 of bad luck bounces;
 knocked undead,
 surrendered to the futile fates:
 options gone,
 hope gone,
 faith gone,
 dignity gone,
 illusions shattered
 into shards of turmoil
 in the absence of affection
 and play,
against the hardened grime
of invisibility. 

  Closed:
 quiet respite
 without demands,
 propped seatside down 
 on a marble floor,
 the night’s memory mopped clean,
 and free from the weight
 of butted burdens;
 
 resting
 with the good intentions
 of another day.