I had wanted to edge in         yes?

Edge in with those men

Who indicate their pain through details

Of the earth's restless dismissal

Of our hopes. I awoke imagining

Your inscrutable aloofness

Reflecting my rejected scripts. This lashing rain

Beats out more stacatto empty morse

Upon my furrowed windows. Without the flame

We are aimless fodder

Feeding the chemical labyrinth.

It's called finding one's voice             yes?

Voice.

Like finding oneself

Awake

Forced to absorb

This demented downpour

Which has failed to quieten

That sodden song thrush

Waking in the whirring pines.

I listen           yes?

Listen to the falsity........

Those habitual turnings

From the act of integrating

All that is here.

It is very strange       yes?

Strange that there really is

No defeat in turning around.

The instant I gave up trying

To refeel what had past

I heard the burn

raging beneath the bridge