I.
The past murmurs
Telling tales
Insistently
Its legend wails.
Wordless no more,
Add narration
Do not sully
With false oration.
Attack that night.
The cool, hot bath
When Boys Don’t Cry
Lingered last.
A friend told tales
Of GHB
Crystalline
In purity.
He tried it once.
But have no fear.
Moderation
Remains quite clear.
Are friends supposed
To goad by risk?
Make stark the music
Sped up to brisk.
A new cocktail.
No more the drain
Of shit-filled nights
Ill-fought with pain.
Feeling quite down,
Asking for relief,
A mixture tainted
Mania as thief.
Shopping for software
All related
Solving puzzles,
Never sedated.
All seemed quite close,
Keys everywhere,
Worlds caterwauled
Connecting each fare.
Throwing games in cart
Firm with conquest
Everything matched
Mysteries guessed.
Ideas ever present
So ample the aisles
Slips of paper
Like Whitman’s piles.
Every walk about
An instigation,
Words omnipresent
Never cessation.
Streets had phrases
Chants to remember
Another notecard
Fired with ember.
Words like animals
Escaped from the zoo.
Listen, gatekeeper,
Herd them through.
This zoo of words
This menagerie.
Connectedness
To know is to see.
Foregoing words,
Torn magazines,
Abby Warburg
Searching figurines.
Magda sang verity
On past’s turntable.
Flickering vibrato
Did truth enable.
Records, tokens,
That distant time.
Covers beckoned
Promised sublime.
A time of risk
Before Corgi’s calm,
The singer’s truth
A cogent balm.
The water was warm,
But shivering.
He mouthed a truth
Worth delivering.
Quit baptismal,
Quickly dressed.
Readying answer
Fit for a quest.
Notecards where truth
Came spilling out.
The voice unhinged
Rose to a shout.
Magda’s cover,
The standard shield,
Authenticity
Made falsehood yield.
Pack the back pack,
Add the poppers,
A quest uptown
Through maddened shoppers.
II.
The night was stark,
With fury lit
He vaulted northward
Past Yuletide’s grit.
Angry, in flight
From friendship’s fail,
In search of respite,
Forcibly male.
The trial of tubs,
Predictably,
That place to seek
A pounding plea.
Angry the pace
Of circuit cruise,
Halls are lit dim
To shadow the muse.
The night did hide
Its Orphic voice,
A beat too loud
Masked tuneful choice.
His furtive room
Shut hard the door.
He quit to hunt
In search of lore.
He raced around
Familiar track
Too quick by half
No turning back.
Too gaunt for most
Past shit-filled night
His expression drawn,
Un-beckoning sight.
The search for solace
Poppers as fuel,
Another trek
As Parsifal’s fool.
Where be Amfortas,
The wounded knight?
He must be busy
Tied up with his rite.
Lances un-offered
No tempter vamps
Tight is the room
Where hero encamps.
The past murmurs
In metaphors,
Pacing around
Mythical floors.
A poem’s a story,
A scena caught,
Record it quick,
Don’t slacken taut.
Heat unabated,
Towel turned back
North did he march
On fateful track.
III.
A sentinel
Guards the waiting gate.
Harbor of safety,
Quiet of late.
This place away
From word-filled street
Where silence might end
With truth to greet.
His story to tell
Feckless deceit.
Shout out the truth,
Tally the sheet.
He masters she.
She lends flavor.
Lust’s a dictator
Flush with favor.
Tell it straight up,
Stirring truth-sayer,
Do not defer
To false betrayer.
Log on forthright,
Proud Email await,
Lay out the facts,
Squarely dictate.
The mind confounds,
Hastening forth,
Blocks the password’s
Magnetic North.
How can he enter
With key unsure?
His judgment blanks
Plays saboteur.
Help avails not;
Entrance is needed.
Search out the fount
That verity pleaded.
The call proved Delphic
Sly though he ask
That Virgil be guide
For Dante’s task.
The call was tallied,
A part of the proving,
That madness had called,
Darkened while moving.
Help un-tendered,
Passwords withheld,
At this juncture,
Stark system expelled.
In search of answer,
He opened the door,
Looking for watch words,
He wandered the floor.
Seeking messengers
Apollo’s bolt
An opening,
A spark, a jolt.
There was no Prelude
To launch his song,
He cast the floor
To right ugly wrong.
The past murmurs,
Odd with mishaps,
Chance could have spawned
Other outcomes, perhaps.
IV.
A decision again.
To flee the worksite,
Search for the port
That ferries insight.
Checking out,
Through surety,
More evidence
Of nighttime’s debris.
Nothing rang sure,
Thresholds stood shuttered
Denied refuge
His address stuttered.
Hansel left crumbs
Journeying forth.
Turned to the right
On quest due North,
A hotel sighted
Cornered, lit dark
Question’s answer
For solace to park.
Work’s Amex card
Seemed apropos.
Smithy the truth
Of horror’s tableaux.
Could not stark charge
Attest at trial
That door swung naked
Foregoing guile.
No luggage but Magda,
Her sheltering oak.
The night’s clerk laughed,
Fortune’s private joke.
Elevators rose harsh,
So high the floor,
To turn which way,
To grope the door.
A place to board
For hours to lurk,
The key was harsh,
A puzzle at work.
Portals leapt open,
The searching light
Staging a scena
With extras in sight.
Two blackened lovers
Caught in caress.
Was this Porgy
Auditioning Bess?
Crowded way station,
Lustful the pair
Trite in their coupling,
A proper affair.
Passion intruded,
It failed to confess.
Porgy did not halt;
Bess did not dress.
He fled, haunted,
His gauntness frail.
The night clerk laughed,
An improbable tale.
The unsafe night,
In search of rest
Authenticity,
A fitting quest.
Cold sunlight threatened,
Toughness held fast,
Where was the tip
Where wildness passed?
V.
Again to his post,
Like Fool to Life’s Grail.
The guard chuckled—
An evidence trail.
Wild help desk call,
Demands did rail,
Passwords, passwords,
Access Email.
Answers withheld,
He, the suspect,
Hung up in rage
Improper respect.
Faint light dawned
Out on vast floor,
The teammate he asked
To probity swore.
“Where is my password?
I have the key,
I know so much
That others must see.”
Back to the haven,
Bereft of access,
Close tight the door
In search of recess.
He sought shadows
Not locked in yet,
He felt constrained
By the set unset.
An agent knocked.
Seeking entry.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine, let me be.”
His time had paused
Without trustee.
Who knows what query
Might temper debris?
Agents tried the door.
He pushed it back.
He locked it then.
Protect from attack.
Displaced, he shouted.
“You don't fool me.”
They might come softly,
Reading his plea.
Warm with anger,
The sweater came off,
No teeshirt covered,
He must be fuck-off.
Now the frail victim,
To storm and protect,
Passing the point
Where grievous is checked.
Was he a jumper,
He reckoned not.
Agents knew nothing
Of nuance or plot.
Death’s sound option
Had faint allure.
Recalling the scene
Who can be sure?
Friends and lovers
Deepened without
He without trust
Could only shout.
Saved from himself,
Lightning the storm,
Syringe was readied
That agents might swarm.
Memory dances.
Unclear its score,
Purging the rage
Buffering before.
VI.
The past murmurs
From the left side.
Tinnitus fills in
Sound that we hide.
The past finds place,
Rightly it beckons.
What’s over fills out,
As onward reckons.
Murmuring quiets
The mellowing path.
Leavens each case,
Foregoing the wrath.
Though never through
The murmurs sprout hue.
The lyric comes clean,
Each line speaks its due.
Faithful to truth,
Let tales be told,
Tethered by words
Let quest stay bold.
No witnesses,
No anecdotes,
His own notary
Without need of notes.
The murmurs languish,
Not every night.
Time to take tally,
To rally and write.
The quiet now
Of ampler sleep.
He knows somehow
No eve’s too deep.
Murmurs, come again,
Authentic their spark
Make of foregone
A comical lark.
The poet must sing
To calm the night.
There is no choice
But words insight.
Stars stay stilled,
The morning’s bright.
Today’s the time,
Let much come right.
Let battles past
Whisper and grow.
Take dictation
That they might glow.
Dreams of the manic—
Joking circus clown,
Murmurs entice
Yet allow us slow down.
