Two Poems

Long Black Train

You’re sitting beside a murderer.

He’s reading a tear-stained newspaper.

There’s blood in his hair,

a red hand turning to the comic pages.

You’re on the last train home,

a night so dark

even the stars are mortified.

The moon is shivering.

The planets have come off their tracks.

Through long black tunnels

and desolate countryside,

the midnight train barrels along,

its last two passengers a passing blur,

a brief flash seen

through the broken window

of an abandoned farmhouse.

Or perhaps this is no killer,

with dirt in his shoes,

without eyes and death on his lapel.

Maybe he’s the you from a lifetime ago.

Perhaps you’ve fallen for your own deception.

Succumbing To The Otherness

“The one ocean contains all other oceans,”

said the soul of Enrico Enrico.

“This sky is every sky that ever was or will be,”

he continued, enthused with newfound wisdom.

Down by the river the disembodied one

stopped to admire the wild roses growing there,

thick and unattended.

“Where has your body gone to?”

a little girl playing on the riverbank asked,

unabashed curiosity overcoming her initial fright.

But a star had captured Enrico Enrico’s attention,

the evening star, a vanguard of night.

With a sedulous gaze straying towards its light,

he entered through the portals of Heaven.

On Earth, in a little country cemetery,

a gravedigger is patting down freshly turned dirt.

He stands a moment by the graveside.

The world envelops him in darkness.