What is Love if it Loses Consciousness?
 

I greet the gray, silent morning
with indecision.

The chain link fence I walk beside.

A tree behind it goes crazy,
waving its frescoed tower of leaves

in the wind.

Long needles cling to each limb.
Spiny path, I pine my way

down the sidewalk. The sky defies definition.
Above me nothing but a winter face,

dark with puffed clouds for cheeks, eyes
ready to open and shed some great

winged tears. In the prison on the city,
I mask my anguish by acting city-like.

Long coat, thick scarf-
head down. The sound of my lone footsteps,

like an echo that perceives distance.
I could be here or there, arriving or retreating.

The air is motionless with cold.
The buildings are asleep. Shadows are the only

things moving. Reason passes me by.
I forget what love is. Some long lost something.

A dream perhaps? A thief's new possession.
The sun hides inside trousers.

I wear delirium because my heart has sunk
into a drunk and homeless state.


The Adoptees

Heaven waits like a four star hotel,
full service with angels at beck and call,
loved ones booked for eternity
on the same floor, room service
from a company of servants.
The Father, God-managing it all,
the entire corporation in His hands,
a menagerie of spirit,
solid, liquid, ice and light.
Moon pals to keep company with,
stars to sing you to sleep at night.
A rescue Hall filled with all the lost,
every stillborn, each abortion, the suicides
and homicides, the stubborn and the restless.
Every Friday night they hold an adoption party
which every advanced soul attends.
It isn't charity, it isn't a requirement, to adopt
the less fortunate. It is, however,
the miracle they've been waiting for.