History of Horror


We walk through the museum,

staring at the black and white photos,

reading the summaries.

The first apprehensions shock

with sharp stabs of grief, 

the heavy curtain-fall of numb disbelief.

We move on to the next.

Each succeeding percussion lessens, 

like thunder moving off in the distance,

horror turning easily into history.

At the end of the self-guided tour,

we are hungry.

We drive back into distracted lives,

satisfied that our short investment

in one sober stretch of yesterday

justifies our turning away 

from it for the rest of the day

and the rest of our lives.



I am haunted by the myth of arrival



                                                                                                 Image by Frank Winkler from Pixabay. Creative Commons License.

I am haunted by the myth of arrival

in all my tiresome never arriving, 

to find this sunbreak an elixir 

that slips away before I can drink her to the dregs; 

or that sweet moment with you 

whisked briskly into the cold alley

of having just been, already longing for the next. 

How Good comes in lucious snatches, 

in rushes and batches like flocks of birds

whose instincts send them south for the winter,

crossing skies in pulsating patches.

And the wafting scent from the baker’s oven 

passing me by is not a tease, is itself the gift

among all the others, that uplifted trail

of stones breaking the surface of the creek

enough to make a way across for nimble feet.