— Like a trumpet waiting for lips to set the dreams free,
the shape wrought, the deeds done and now the act must come
that allows the liberated music to ascend me

— Or a space between a pretense and the mercy
that forgiveness brings
and allows a life to continue in its fashion

I have written and signed and now wait
for the novel to emerge
but the days drag on like the fearful feet of ancient Britons
having marched to the south only to learn
the Vikings attacked the north
and so must hurriedly return.

I linger for the sharp review,
weep even to bleed, loitering, as I am,
for the moment someone smiles and says,
‘I have read your book.’

— And in this tedium, nothing can be done,
or only halfheartedly, and so
the house grows dirtier by the hour,
the dishes gather like rats in the sewer,
and words become the liquid contents of the chamber pots
emptied in shadowed lane ways on the unsuspecting heads
of anyway who passes me by