and  days go by

long from the hot summer sun.

bears are in their nest.

i need peace

from the crush of the masses

that sadden my soul.

no more noise of

endless boring chatter from

sad desolate lives.

the gears of a slow

world grind even more slowly

now that time has changed.

and profound darkness

creaks out of the coldest nights

when the moon fails to rise.

take me where the old

jazz man blows his sorrow horn

in some warm dark bar

where everyone

silently dresses in black

drinking sweet absinthe.

to where poets write quatrains

with worn out pencils behind

frosty dirty glass.

we leave at the dawn

hand in hand to the short day

where we must now rest.

fall into some bed

down soft comfort warm in love

crying gently to sleep.

I dreamed a dream where I dreamed a dream

that I was but a shadow who disappeared into a mirror

through which Persophone awaited my arrival

tempting me with her beautiful tearful presence.

“Oh, White Knight, come with me to the underground

for to slay the dreadful Hades who I cannot love,

he who forbids needed sustenance for months

while I am away from my mother, Dementer.”

“Oh beautiful lady of the gods who rule heaven and earth,

I am but mere mortal man who carries only the power to love.

I have not the power to slay the god of the underworld

who lives in a realm humans cannot enter but with death.

I awoke from madness upon hearing the coyotes who roamed

when dawn might come to bring enlightenment to flowers,

to light beings with diamond eyes, and to us mere mortals.

I stood before the mirror to stare at my morning face,

but saw only Persophone smiling me back into my dream.