1 New Poem

What We Did That Summer

You never did quell these
storm clouds with your speech,
tempest crash of waves
with time that throw us upon
rough shores still, as bodies nameless
to each other, carrying mask shrouds
around in patchwork star craft
that we had before been;

but, then, what had changed?

It wasn’t that the echo noise
had drowned in cascade wave
of sweet sayings, of clasping
symphonies that won out above
this din of pen clanks that made
the best of sour times,
the best of winsome heart skips;

no, far from it, they remained.

But, it felt freer, shedding
husk-shell of normal,
half-lies we had
to speak for ourselves to
be found, the wounded searches
we took on ice flows between
seas of blessed belief
and fearful-minding of ever-closer
clock ticks of empty altar bells;

that was all gone, with you.