Eleven o’clock, and the curtain falls. 
The cold wind tears the strands of illusion; 
The delicate music is lost 
In the blare of home-going crowds 
And a midnight paper.

The night has grown martial; 
It meets us with blows and disaster. 
Even the stars have turned shrapnel, 
Fixed in silent explosions. 
And here at our door 
The moonlight is laid 
Like a drawn sword. 

Maybe it ruins the story to say at the start that no one was hurt
the day Scotty Forester swung open the door of the family car,
climbed up, put one hand on the wheel and, then, while pushing
and pulling on buttons and knobs, he found and released 

the brake, and it started, the silver-blue Mercury, to roll 
down Robin Street, best street in the neighborhood for sledding, 
for coasting on a bike with arms waving above your head, 
Scotty gaining speed on the long sweep of that block, heading 

toward the intersection, then into it, then speeding 
through, the car beginning to slow as the street leveled out,  
although, toward the end, Scotty going fast enough 
to jump the curb before stopping, three feet from a gas pump. 

Maybe knowing the ending ruins this story, but sometimes 
we need a break from dread. We need to know that the car 
did not crash, the child did not die. We need to briefly forget 
that we live in a world where a car is gaining speed, and 

no one seems to be at the wheel. We need to be more 
like the dog Scotty drives past, who barks, and runs in circles 
as he barks some more, driven by some circuitry we have lost 
for loving this dangerous life, living it.

^{for David Lieberman}

Every summer my neighbor 
with a hard hat, heart, and hide 
trundles out his hippo Harley 
to go hissing out on a fat hot breeze

He doesn’t know it 
(or does he?) 
but that is how pain 
wheels itself out

seasonal

It is real 
It is recurrent 
It is a reminder of the flaw 
built into the machine to preserve perfection

If we could delve into the granular caves 
of the asphalt his wheels wheeze on 
we might see in the crepuscular cracks

a twisty little thing we call sorrow

stretching its centimal length

knowing it owns the world

Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying; 
My dog and I are old, too old for roving. 
Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying, 
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving. 
I take the book and gather to the fire, 
Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute 
The clock ticks to my heart. A withered wire, 
Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet. 
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander 
Your cornland, nor your hill-land, nor your valleys 
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder 
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies. 
Only stay quiet while my mind remembers 
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers. 
Beauty, have pity! for the strong have power, 
The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace, 
Summer of man its sunlight and its flower, 
Spring-time of man all April in a face. 
Only, as in the jostling in the Strand, 
Where the mob thrusts or loiters or is loud, 
The beggar with the saucer in his hand 
Asks only a penny from the passing crowd, 
So, from this glittering world with all its fashion, 
Its fire, and play of men, its stir, its march, 
Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion, 
Bread to the soul, rain where the summers parch. 
Give me but these, and, though the darkness close, 
Even the night will blossom as the rose.