The only true ghosts 

are memories of our past faults

that haunt the long nights 

 Not hallowed ground just

land where boys were forced to kill 

boys by sick old men 

A shock of thistle 

in a snow mound may be dead 

but can still draw blood 

Frontline citizens 

face off with homegrown fascists 

battling for our souls 

The fetid breath of 

mortality tickles your 

ear with whisperings 

Artifice is all

today, when actors replace 

gods, and the rest pray 

Fortuna coyly

winks with promise but fails to

deliver the goods

Flames' flicker calls us

ancestrally back to an

inner sense of awe 

Winter cold burrows

into bones like termites in

soft wood gnawing through 

A tickling teasing 

thought plays at the edge of your 

mind, still elusive 

Consume away your 

rights with every purchase that

buys another vote

TV signals beam

disdain for the boring lives 

of their audience 

River locked in ice 

still flows below and grinds at

the edges so loudly 

 I recall your scars

received by cars and in bars

but only skin deep 

Wind-carried snow blinds 

so whitely, not purity 

but simply nature 

Branches stripped of life

strain towards the sun begging for

its warming embrace

Like a panther pads

silently at night darkness

creeps up behind us 

Shed grace like a snake

skin, reveal a carapace 

of gunmetal ire 

Hidebound bulwarks won't 

protect from this caustic and 

invasive species 

Just around the next 

corner something awaits that's

bad, good, maybe both

The morning fog looks

like a Stieglitz photo from 

the 1900s 

 Nuns on bicycles

roll through my old neighborhood 

like hell (heck) on wheels 

Blighted at birth by

Cain's curse the world should beg for

forgiveness not cheer 

Poison the air for 

pennies and steal the future 

to raise stock prices 

Bright and beautiful 

angels dance on synapses 

when I wake with you 

In the fading light

the deep shadows stretch towards

the sun's final gasp 

Broken bodies will

begin to heal and fallow 

fields become reborn 

Birds gather on the

branches waiting for someone 

to toss them some food 

Blood runs in the streets 

and they lift their skirt hems to

avoid getting soaked 

 The tide pulls with an

irresistible force towards 

the deep boundless sea 

Return to those half-

forgotten promises that

you made to yourself