What if this voice wasn't my own?
    Spooky wind channeling the coldness . . .
     and wind hard across the water
   pushing white capped waves towards the sheer cliffs
       surging water
     row boat crashing against marble ledges
      straigt up
     to giant arborifollio trees
 laid open on a desk as a photograph
  as if being looked at from above and beyond.
      
 the photoer turns the pages back 
     "don't look at the vision of the sudden storm" 
 he says
        without saying
  
  The photoer knows
     a picture is worth
        thousands less of words
   no words to clog up the gears of mind
   no  words, you didn't know them
        before you learned to speak 
    you are the same person as from before and so
   those words are only yours if you make them yours.
  You can have words, doesn't mean you need to share them with anyone.
  No one wants to hear all of your hoary discontents
     and malconcieved notions
  of other people's motives, 
   all wrapped in words.

   Let the baby sleep in the crib in silence.
   no words gumming up her impressionable little mind.
   They chatter on their endless gossip,
     think that the baby is sleeping.
   but she isn't.
    She's listening.
    She's learning all your drama, momma.
  She'll need it later. 
    She'll need it when she goes to battle later
       against a father's falsehoods
    and a mother's rage
     at you refusing her lovingly made food
  as if it is the holy supper.

   There was gravy and carrots and peas
  with butter and eggs.
    There were pork loins and chicken breasts and grouse in a sauce.
        It couldn't have tasted better if it ever tasted worst.
  A bite of this, a taste of that
   there was always more than what was needed.

        Waste
  across the street with the new rug
     and the new roof
  and another new rug
      and another new roof
     and another new rug.

  There is a train that goes up through the valley
    on it's way to the magic land of Burlington.
     You might hear them pull that whistle
   if coming to a crossing,
      they see someone on the easement near the track,
      little boys putting pennies on the rail.

  Little boy pulls his arm like there's a whistle there.
    Older guy
       running the train or the truck
  pulls that air horn to signal
    ya, I hear you. Rightous.
  

  My friend didn't want to go to the poet's grave
    and have a beer with Jack and then
 yelled at me because I saw a kid
   who looks like Adam Sandler
     but is much too young.

  And so I said (to myself, because he would have yelled
                     at me if I'd said it outloud)
        OK, I won't say another word

  But of course I'm chatty when I drive
  accusing other folks of things that I imagine that they do
     like cutting me off on an on-ramp
      running me up against the back of a Prius that's driving too slow, 
     running aside in the passing lane
    so I can't get over there
   as I approached a fraidy-cat in a volvo
      who's driving too slow for the road, minimum is 40. They drive 35.

  So it's me the bad guy who has some problem of being
    impatient in traffic and I admit my fault
  at my mutterings that weren't for my friend
 and not even for this other driver to hear
       and he tells me that, ya, my 
confessions are correct
     and it's me, always me, the retchid me (of course he says 'you').

   OK, so I tell him that
    why is it that when I admit to some slight fault of character
  that suddenly it's all that and everything else and I represent a worse case to him.

  But all success is failure to him.
   If you win you are a looser because you must have sold out. 
  I don't think like that anymore.
  The world wears us down enough.
    we all get weathered by life's continuous storms and furries
      of hail and rain, sleet, snow, ice meteor
         from heaven on high
     fallen down from there
     where it was put just for our enlightenment
    as it darkens the sky and our life.

 the ice meteor 
      brushes by the Earth, no effect
   except for lights in the sky
       and that great big wheel up there
  always turning.

  So then I ran off to the summer place
     to clean up after the mice that Winter there.

  Where we Summer the mice do Winter
   So spend your first day away 
     cleaning up old nests for these interlopers 
  into the Summer world, their Winter nest.

  And I see them in the trees
   and running along the edges of the ledges
    towards the water far below
   the sky way above
   hawk in a tree
     Winter cold and ice covers over the whole bay
     and they be in here having their Christmas diner of nuts and berries, frozen chimpmunk poo
  all along the wall
   and down inside 
      the sofa bed.

  So I want to haul that old couch and bed outside
      take it away, don't care where it goes.
 
 Hollow out the world
     and fill it up with candy.
 If I give you money
    will you come and visit?
 why is the world so all alone? 
     and friends don't call back.
  Oh woe and sunshine, water and ice.
  Get's his snorkle from the back of the Jeep.

  Get's his mask and goes down the long stairs with the snorkle
  past the glade of poison ivy and 
       giant arborafollio trees (growing there
            since prehistoric times)
  "What dreams may come? 
    The one where you pretend you don't know me.
  Emily? Emily G? Johnny B says 
    don't come around there anymore.
  But he'd probably let you come in if you went by.

  but it was easier for Emily
     to get in the pills and be done with caring about other people.
  Whatever horrer of past love lost turned to dust
      she had
  she used it to battle off
     friends who really cared, 
  to stupid and weak to walk away
      like everyone else did.
    we all had to after a time.
 the only guys she didn't sleep with were the gay ones.

  Ah, heartbreak,
       bad Christmas memories from the past.
     These words
   my words,
   unfiltered
      I share them.

 Time will tell with editing
      If I leave any of them here
    where no body sees them
     and if it matters at all to anyone
  if I am correct in what I say.

 These feelings cataloged by me
    are not even real but just
    fabrications of memory
    like the clouds that look like
            ancient Roman legionaire
    loving dad's
         who sired happy nations of folks of good works.
 Cathedrial of the Saints
     Guild of the holy Jesus lovers.

  The cloud moves forward.
    I sense a strong father's love for the good works of his sons,
      the joy of grand children,
  the serenity of loving family.
 Generations and generations
    of loving and giving and growing and
  no more battles but battles of soul.

  The dust that collects on the table,
     on the desk
 near the fan
       get's stired up and pushed around
 when the fan get's powered on.

 The brief universe of wind in the room
      results in quick equilibrium.
 The dust get's sucked into the air cleaner and is stuck down in it.

 Before he died
      my grandfather had a long
     and lingering 
  Period of exceptional health.