REWRITE: Sandcastles

I built this castle on the rock of my isolation

on the rasp of stone on stone.

Only this forges my conviction;

in this I steel my cold faith.

I laid fortifications on solitude,

lonely citadels in seclusion:

my great battlements of exile.

Here alone I bear this adamantine chain;

Here alone reigns the rule of this certainty.

You came from the desert,

locusts and wild honey.

You told me you had seen mountains erode,

cities turn to salt—

and cracks form in the veils of those who would not see.

You told me that the firmest rocks become shifting sands;

that the days would come

where I would find uncertainty in my certainty;

and discover myself nervous and afraid

in the simplest acts of not being alone.

So you have told me—

but always I am the unbeliever.

original here

REWRITE: Tapping

It does not rain clean here
like it does on the roof of my mind:
It only taps lightly on my car,
the scattered showers of a landlocked city.
It drizzles, uneasily, against the drawn windows,
muddy streaks in its wake.

It does not resound like the torrents
of my memory, the cold rivulets
dripping from my clothes
chilling through my hair
the numb outline of my skull.

When it falls here, it ceases—
there is no patter to pitter
me my soft way through the night.

I gained my feet and inches in a city that rained;
in my own time I need return,
lest the hinges on that door rust—
oh, the rain tapping in your ears
the rain tapping on your skin.


original here

Walk

I do not know if it is the movement or the action,

that finds me walking.

My mother was a cricket; my father a cicada

The world passes a drilling through one ear

and comes out a chirp the other.

The mottled wood of the community trees

glows yellow in the lamplight;

the wind mutters in the branches above me;

the heavy tires of a car roll home.

The feel of bark against my skin

reassures me.

The stars do not shine often in this city,

But tonight the dim glow of the sky

fades its way through the cover of clouds.

If I squint, I may make out

what might be a sign of something.