I heard there were answers
at the bottom of
a lifetime.

That's too long to wait and
too far to fall.

In another life there were no
questions;
yesterday there were poems
and a forbidden earth to adore,

to float beside, as slow as she
wished to go.

I toured reality,
just a spirit taking notes,
playing human,
casting dreams
and calling it a day.

In the unraveled smoke of
winter, shadows carouse.

Shadows are immortal in December,
gazing through the eyes of blind fear.

So far to fall
before the
flight of reason.

Fields have folded into a box,
trees into a cage.
Medusa's hair is at war
with mist.

Too many battles and things
to untangle in December.

Money is the romance of
December.
Money-ragged symbol of lost
or found hope-coexists with
Raphael angels.

Convenient, its nest
between gold.

Tin bells and smug saints
would have me
pretend that pain is sacred.

Let them fall prostrate at the hem
of frozen gods
for only a chance to win.

Their crumbs vanish in the
thirsty void,
impossible riddle,
a text written to confound.

Rigged game and howling titans . . .
that's all it is.

Every night I am resurrected;
the floor of heaven chips away
and sprinkles me like a
mass-produced fairy:
flickers of foolishness,
a beautiful lie.

And for a while I can take
the barbed wire of a massive
life and dream it into satin
spirits,
sometimes even myths and
light shows

that must be returned when
daybreak grinds them to
tomorrow.

But tonight, I toast this
prodigal joy,
plastic angels, plug-in candles
and all.

I salute you, oblivion.
I praise you in the shadows and
rehearse another death.

I am born in the
holy emptiness
of now.

© Patricia Joan Jones