On a moon-frozen night
I felt
a break
in the embalming
silence
Hanging over
November's wasted trees

Like a seed pod
coming
open

Ethereal light
seeping
out

It seemed--

Untangling of paradox
at the forbidden threshold

I felt the weightlessness
Of the crumbling Sphinx

Then the rising roar of blood
In my skull

Somewhere behind
The quiet breathing of the stars

The breach closing.

Back then, body tight, hardly used,
not quite finding itself

In that semblance of Eden
too easily duped by
the love beads and bangles,
stunned by
the earth scent of patchouli--
the jewelled promises
slicing open the heart.

The weekends imploding
way too soon,
there was no Bathsheba
or Jane Eyre
hell, even Van Morrison
lost
up on Cypress Avenue,
it hurt to watch
the day-juice sputtering out--
and freedom like a noose.

Two a.m. and nothing
but the sour taste of déjà vu
and beautiful pain
arcing through the brain,
the yellow-eyed ghosts
on the 401,
remnants of purpose
and me I guess it was
inside my '65 Ford,
window rolled down
letting in night's sad tongue.

Caught in some crazy eddy,
Nietzsche's eternal doom
played out infinite times,
headed out in the early fog
delivering the missing parts
of people's lives
in the rusted company van
to pay the cockroach rent
paralyzed in the light
of the sun's slow rot--
each brittle morning
refilling the kettle with hope,

Till hitting that invisible wall,
brown days crashing down
like tidal waves
proving the stranger inside
wasn't dead
and that nothing lasted
except the deep drone
of undiscovered souls.

The curse was not ever knowing--

And now, Alice, it should add up:
the house on Pinewood Avenue,
the warm-kept bed
the cul-de-sac of dreams--

No blunt aching hacksaw
cutting through my heart.