Closed and locked
But easily opened
From the inside
If you would let me in
But easily opened
From the inside
If you would let me in
Their darkest hour
To bed confined
For none the power
To stall the march of death’s decline
And so alone
Souls pass away
While not a hand
Is offered they
But latex glove
The touch at end of earthly stay
It was impossible to know
If her composure reflected disoriented shock
Or disdain for the physical danger
She had not yet entirely escaped
Until she let the hem fall down her thigh
Turned her attention toward her destination
Determined steps splashed a path
In a straight line through flotillas of shattered debris
Which seemed to have drifted in a pattern
Intended to allow her unobstructed exit
Books, papers, and various other shards of detritus
Drifted in the eddies of unsettled water
Which she cleaved like a great ship through choppy seas
In countenance and action
She exhibited a formidable and resolute presence
Like the war film fantasy of the battalion commander
Who leads his troops through a barrage
Of bullets and shrapnel
Upright, undeterred, intent not on the enemy
But the objective beyond their defensive lines
The prophet, Sullivan, preached
Writing the gospel of
Purpose Informs Art
On landscapes and city streets
Ah, sighs Calatrava
And erects his Mona Lisa smile
Its contrarian pulse
The blood flowing through Valencia’s veins
As form takes flight
With function on its wing
I revel in dreamy whimsy
With purpose in the wake
It wasn’t for the words we’d speak
Or to look into each other’s eyes
(You never took off your sunglasses)
To see or be seen
Or for a breath of fresh city air
In the chill afternoon
Yes, we spoke, shot the shit, as you say
You think, I’m sure, because voices fill the silence
But I can see the tendrils of sound
As they weave a caress
Coaxing our essence to expand
Occupy the same space
A moment not just of friendship
Or intimacy
Or even love
Something deeper
A moment in which our beings
Touch
Intertwine
A flirtation with the insight
That two can be one
In your presence
Woven into your essence
I sense the greater truth
Of the connection
Which makes us all
The One
Beneath all the other reasons
Our conscious and unconscious tell us
The latent awareness deep within knows
This is why we gather
This is why we linger
Long after all the other reasons have passed
That awareness is The One
To live as this awareness
Is to awaken
Their glory assured
Set against their own int’rests
Willing sacrifice
War’s wretched slaughter
For lambs sent into mayhem
Fear held in dead eyes
Remains laid to ground
With white crosses row on row
Power’s martyred souls