Gambit-and-I

The amber lights bleed red, seeping into glistening black puddles, reflecting the hue of Bryan's dissatisfaction underneath his tempered eyelids. The glare projects a fierce deep shadow across his brow - like a flashlight storyteller at a campfire. Low gears growl in the bowels of a single oversized semi-trailer as it hauls to a start past the streetlights that hang mere feet over it. Bryan watches through his side window, irritated as it canters into a sluggish left turn, occupying both lanes on the opposite side of the road and avoiding his car's forward path entirely. He forces out a sigh for wasted time, pressing air through his pursed li

This is the lonesome road that they tell of. I pray for the bittersweet in-between Defilades of city-block houses From this iced gale barrage Not out here. Here are deserts of dead fields: Summer-Sun seared green grasses To the sullied, cracked soil - its withered colour Thickets, not spurring with life, But fraying, frail in the hot wind Line the roadside, hissing. We hasten by them, splitting the whirring waves of heat The road exhales. Blurred pastures pass through these windows, No more green than the dirt that pits in the smoothed Grooves of these tires: rock's sift lifted from our Rocky driveway promenade -- Worn by thi

The tumbling humdrum of The brute industrial heater that Hovers on girders above our heads Wet school-shoes shriek on scored floor boards Scuffed by years of scholars and sport. Tin torrents to timber Down the dated walls; Faint lines of scraped paint Cross under idle feet: A basketball court, a theatre hall – a call To assembly; A makeshift space Plays a face for all. Plaques adorn a corner. A name floats above names, Nailed To pleated steel sheets. Thick burly wood on Dappled silver iron. A board on vertical waves.

I sat in the unbridled, Un-haltered seats Of denture-white buses, Pushing at the hills  like walls , Low gears growl In the stomach Of the miniature, white steed. Black to black. 4 – Thin and small Carried me over The gravel they grappled, As O'Connell climbed Along the broken-line-spine Of that pitch snake That winds its way                   To you. Each crest, another dimension That lays on nauseas minds. Pressing further still with acclivitous time. Biding pressure between burst ears. Transit perpetuates to the

You're a girl enamoured in talent - Talented with shrinking things, I flounder, Tossed, palm to palm. Never static, Nothing truly is, With you. Fondling the birdcage That falls around your neck; The Labyrinth of your mind — A trinket in your hand Or, an hourglass, Seeping  sand? You're going places! A soul borne for flight, To glorious spaces. Walled in neuroses. Spaces left, for pictures to post. You paint a world you know is not. You know better than most. But, be true; There are no walls, Not a cage, never? No, but a tether: Set to soar, Leashed unto that Minotaur. You stress the links Of a chain tha

They sit and sip The chatter Round the party-night campfire. Slurred words blur The spaces Between these seats: Hot hearts' respire. The clothed, layered desire; Shawls to a drunken laugh. Adrift on a draft The stifling scent of Perfume pleas. This white winter breeze — Pin pricks of shivering skin                                 So fair, Subsequent and sweeping Beneath sleeves that dress             

I read words, Fleeted, To tales of grandeur. To happenings, Of presence  and meaning. Twixt the two was edict, they said, As from ether. So they heralded down to children— Merely out of nurture In immediacy, The stories stolen, Drenched in conviction Misplaced? Even as a child, Humility was in refrain For the next session, Math, Literacy, Comprehension— Seemed more pressing; Intrinsic disregard. I was one to correct The pedantry of dotting 'i's And crossing 't's — But I could never, Ever  bring myself to read The book. I eyed crosses, With crossed eyes, Disapproving mockery— I looked on, Estra

She always said that I press, I press, "You press too hard - On the paper". Scarring books, tables, Under pages - Wounded wood, Barely retribution, Mum. I had humility once, When I was young. Paternal, her wisdom fostered it. It was alcohol that set to drown it. I will never believe in anything Again. I tell myself All I know, It's from me. But I did not create knowledge – Nor the advent of its effect. I employ, I devise the device, As an ungrateful thief. But I admit words, Words of my Mother: Faults. Oh, how I fault you, In ways never to falter. "Disappointed" – You could never say. Well, not so

Dollars drop and buildings tower, Boiling frogs till the midnight hour. Draw back the veil, Expose the iron fist That feeds—                       They cannot bite. The straying kine feign in might. The minute hand wanes Clockwise bound. Oblivion! they call Across Wall Street's rounds. Cartridges, receipts Litter the pavement. Lest they learn: The Era of an End Will not yield to payment.