Sleepless night in a townsvilleA clock ticking in the deep gloomA soul trapped in a dark roomSleepless and deathly stillNot a star astride the skyNot a whisper among the treesA tumbler drained to the leesAnd the last ghost of a sighA soft rustle of the curtainA flickering of the street lightEchoing still of an aborted flightAnd down came the rain.
I will remove all memories of youBurn the cruel pictures, every one.Seeing you locked in a frozen imageRemembering youRemembering your momentRemembering and realizingThere could never have been another.Thin lacerations like fine brush-strokesFrom another lifetimeFast disappearing from my naked wristsAre the last of your claim.The world too full of feral maliceAnd you, loved enough not to knowYou who have left as quietly as you cameYour kind leaves long before we doHealing and bruising
"You don't question what you believe, but I must."How far we have come from March 415!They won't stone us or burn us at the stake now,Flay our skin with broken bits of pottery.That was over a hundred years ago. No wait, fifty --Or was it perhaps twenty?Definitely at least ten years ago.Or was it two?Doesn't matter. Time is of no consequence.It is not for you.Today's special is slut-shamingBold red on the multi cuisine menu.It was much in demand yesterday too.Yesterday's special was slut-shaming -It's an everyday specialLeast expensive meal on the tattered, dog-eared menu.
The Winters are so short --I'm hardly justifiedIn sending all the Birds away --And moving into Pod --Myself -- for scarcely settled --The Phoebes have begun --And then -- it's time to strike my Tent --And open House -- again --It's mostly, interruptions --My Summer -- is despoiled --Because there was a Winter -- once --And al the Cattle -- starved --And so there was a Deluge --And swept the World away --But Ararat's a Legend -- now --
How still, how happy! Those are wordsThat once would scarce agree together;I loved the plashing of the surge -The changing heaven the breezy weather,More than smooth seas and cloudless skiesAnd solemn, soothing, softened airsThat in the forest woke no sighsAnd from the green spray shook no tears.How still, how happy! now I feelWhere silence dwells is sweeter farThan laughing mirth's most joyous swellHowever pure its raptures are.Come, sit down on this sunny stone:'Tis wintry light o'er flowerless moors -But sit - for we are all aloneAnd clear expand heaven's breathless shores.
What will they do when I am gone? It is plainThat they will do without me as the rainCan do without the flowers and the grassThat profit by it and must perish without.I have but seen them in the loud street pass;And I was naught to them. I turned aboutTo see them disappearing carelessly.But what if I in them as they in meNourished what has great value and no price?Almost I thought that rain thirsts for a draughtWhich only in the blossom's chalice lies,Until that one turned back and lightly laughed.