Stephens In The Night - with audio

audio link

Sometimes in the night

I walk the way of Stephens

Under a fleeting moon

There to meet old friends

Who join me in the moment

Some twenty plus years ago

In a spectral gaze I see all at 23

As I struggle to find my way


Faces of teachers speak silent expressions

Up and down the walls and halls of Stephens


A kiss unmet, an invitation lilted, a hand not taken

Endless tests and auditions, words forgotten


In the day I become bald and fat, but in that place

Fields round the grounds aglow in faded grace


There walks a muscled youth with thick brown hair

Also in that place see the starlit eyes of those once fair


Unsure how to engage the willowy memory

I wander on with angst in quiet revere


Then looking down like a bird on those below

As Far away as their embraces are from mine now


Where are those lost in sleep so sweet,

Fairies, sprites, dancers lithe, petite


You clarion singers and mummers follow,

In winged reverberations like hawk and swallow


How is it this night that my flesh has become a shadow

Of a long ago forgotten young and lonely actor


Who like The Flying Dutchman, must return

On a purple cobalt foaming of ocean's churn


With the stars of so many souls once familiar

Away from college town passages provincial


Playhouse, chapel, barn and naked lake

Time's jet streams passing goodbyes spake


Of scurrying possum and hurrying skunk

Beetles and crickets creeping in flora's funk 


Now carry this one back from Columbia

To the bewildering hot glow of  L A


Among joy and sadness in tumbling flight


Fare Thee Well Till Another Long Deep Night

Blogging in Late October - with audio

audio link

It came upon me one rainy afternoon,
After the wind had died and the Fog rolled in
The rushing silence deafened me.

What the hell was Blogging anyway
With its Halloween colored B,
Smiling at me like a Jack O Lantern

I shuddered to think on it
But sure as endless October thoughts
Pounding at rocky beachhead shores

So it came, ghostlike, the Blog,
In the mindful mist like a distant hound
Howling out wandering news about the scent

Then a hand reached out from within the dark
And clicked the browser's button
Like a brewing witch with mouse in hand

A shower of black letters fell against the screen
Bleached deathly pale and bony white
X-rays shot flying pitch, as if from some black hole

And as I read on, beyond the late afternoon's twighlight
My mind was once again numbed with night
Something deeper now writes here

Outside, the rustling of the wayward leaves
Static's blue, red, green fractured aurora stream
Glowing eerily on the yard where little gobblins are seen

At the door a knock is heard, and then a creaking sound
Suddenly, the door swings open, with a blood chilling scream
TRICK OR TREAT! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!