dusk

down the shoulder of a straight and narrow highway
across fields of bowed and rain-damp grass
the gravel sky hangs heavy
and from a dark and jagged forest
black eyes rooted in shadows watch

the highway leads nowhere you have been
comes from where you can't return
no one else is traveling in this weather
even the light has flown from the wide valley's folds
a brown-watered stream carries it trickling away

too late you ask where you can rest
no answer gives comfort
it's not comfort that you seek
your long-coat blows tattered in the wind
pockets worn through long ago

abandoned robots in the basement

AR.1
a voice activated R2D2 no longer responds
it used to carry cans of coca cola
I reattached its leg with a six-inch decking screw
accidentally pierced the circuit board
a kind of electronic crucifixion
its corroded batteries leak white powdery acid

AR.2
replaced by a later model with humanoid hands
a Robosapien face down on the floor
the programmers gave it only one word--
Rosebud
it spoke when powered down
the death scene in Citizen Kane
that mysterious last word 
name of the sled he had as a boy
before his mother sent him away
pet name for the clitoris of Marion Davies 

Sunday at the Cafe'

Sitting at your little table in the haze of the Sun
quiet breezes stirring the first yellow leaves

You coaxed me from my dull somnambulation
and nudged all else away-- the spiny creatures
mumbling soldiers, all the lazy moths clinging to my shoulders

A sprig of ivy tangled in a smooth strand of your hair

I played with you like a riddle
your language like a puzzle
holding each word as I turned it in circles

Until ink-made letters perturbed with my prolonged goodbye
leapt from that edgy crossword at the far side of the table
and menaced me as I fled down the street

displaced

Thin and pliable, they've been blown across fields from where the wind is unrelenting
   they have nothing to say, they've forgotten how to speak and if they could: atrocity--
where does one begin? They have slowly turned porous, nearly all have vanished
   relocating to invisible houses in countries of quiet meadows on worlds we've yet to discover
no matter how many radio signals we beam at them from Arecibo they're not coming back.
  They've traveled intentionally by indirect paths so convoluted they can't retrace them
even if threatened or tortured, even for their children; they are identical in this way.