Transit of my soul
From numbing place to place
Dark nights, howling winds
Rattling of a rib-cage window
Naked moon glares above
Skeletal grind and pain
A refrain from dream-cities
Nestled inside the house
Winter chill, freeze-agony
Red lights glow from
Street-corner temples
Listen to the wind
It never lies
(Photo by Brianna Santellan on Unsplash)
Stray dogs rule this town
on other sides of rusted tracks
where train-cars no longer run by,
and broken needles litter roads of
hear dogs howl at nasty nightfalls
under black canvases of iron skies,
smell my rotten soul,
Continue reading “City of Dogs (a poem)”
The sun sets in the
city and covers us all
with a grayish light
Continue reading “Grayish Light (a haiku)”
My ghost wanders the city’s streets.
Continue reading “Wandering Ghost (a 6-word story)”
The woman asks me for ten dollars – she demands it
I’m reluctant, standing in a pock-marked city,
but feeling pity for her, as she frantically talks
her eyes yellow like harvest moons
her voice shrieks like an urban banshee –
the realities of poverty and addiction,
the rich getting fatter off broken backs.
I reach into my wallet, hand her a ten-dollar bill
she hugs me + hurries away, vanishing into the night,
and as I walk home, I wonder if I’ll ever need to
ask for my ten dollars back
(Photo by Vitaly Taranov on Unsplash)
The soul-snatcher glared at me from the dusty street corner with fiery orange eyes, his hands cupped over his mouth because of the early morning cold.
I had been out late that night, and I was returning home a little tipsy.
“Hello there,” he said. “Looking for your fix?”
This gothic cathedral was once a spiritual home.
Priests dabbed foreheads with holy water and
incense wafted to high ceilings and
parishioners chewed on wafers and said:
“Peace be with you.”
Continue reading “Spirit and Flesh (a poem)”
Why does this city feel like a living thing?
It’s like the people teeming from buildings are all
part of an organism, and the endless concrete breathes
and coughs up dust that suspends in hot air.
Continue reading “The City Breathes (a poem)”
The monks say that without an absolute zeal for God, religion becomes just another opiate. This is referring to Marx’s famous statement, that religion is “the opiate of the people.” Who’s correct – Marx or the monks?
Continue reading “The Monk in the City at Midnight”
