how the city grows barely

there is the fastest inflammatory word
the fastest lapse
of love that out lasts every stone,
smooth it rides
the heart to a glowing rich
ruby a glass and bloodless red
there in the alley the
spent and shattered to jem
the destroyed glitter in the
worn street lights proliferate gaze
the hungry crawl slowly
to sleep mired in
these tossed out dreams,
the scrapes of passion
wasted to the knife,
fork and plate
hopeful love is added and consumed
valued quickly and left for seagulls
beggar men and shopping carts, stolen
and pushed slowly through grease,
garbage and sleep long till
morning light.

yards off the rack

let the charged heart,
be broken
forever
and repeat the same instinct
to love
too crippled- to look back
the bones mend
and the walker moves
unsteady
but still forward,
dreams cash in
with howling winds
and hail where
the bobcat meows
terrible in the east lane
and love is battered, lost
unmoving
like a homeless man stolen
in a roofless garage
over whelmed
by quiet rage
and the
hope
to be left alone,
still the
heart wanders on
and
is found time
and again
like words
for
the bricks, the pipes
the stones that
mix with the million
human lives
crumbled to this remainder
a fair child
born in this city
mute
and so
desperate for the animal,
the clawed passion
of being
that the morning is rung in
gold and purple
by her fate and her longing
there the
devastation is
surrounded and
blessed,
like a coronation,
the
crowing of a
stubborn heart
pierced finally by
the silver
leaf of love and the single
sustained
note off the
lovers tongue.