Isis Blown Away

The clapboard paint peeled blood orange,
            like skin cracks that flake ugly brown
under a ladder against the wall
            where empty paint cans spilled on the ground

 It was noon when he rolled down that road
            And got off his HD iron black
And put on his sunglasses to hide his eyes
            From the sun as he walked round the back

 Then gazing through windows into darkness
            The place reeked of ether and death
He heard the voice of a woman
            Saying “do I know you?” under her breath

 Going in slowly to delay as long as he could
            He reached for his M9 just to make sure
And when the thud of his boot hit the step
            His fear he could hardly endure

 There was a long quiet, then he took one more step
            to look through, to break through
And his knock met the shuffle of bare feet
            It was the sound of the Isis he knew

 Was it her, had she changed in the years,
            could she be what they said?
His gut turning to knots, he drew a deep breath
            Wishing that his Isis was dead

 She looked from the shadows down the hallway
            And he saw the bitter, broken lines of her face
She reached for the straps hanging from her shoulders
            And put her tattered dress back into place

 She stepped forward into the sun and he saw her
            the pale of her once sun darkened skin
And in the tangled blue of her brown hair
            He knew it was Isis that he saw again

 “She’s not home,” was her reply, and then it was there
            The voice he hadn’t heard in so long
“Go away, Isis don’t live here no more,” she said
            And then it all began to go so wrong

 As her shape moved back into the shadows
            And her eyes gazed through the door
He recognized the lines of her face through the veil
            Filled with pain that he’d never seen before

 Her hair dark brown was streaks of gray
            She looked cold to the touch
Her shoulders fell as she moved
            With looks not saying too much

 Then at last she broke the silence
            “What do you want?” she said
Afraid and hiding her eyes in her disguise
            “You lookin’ for Isis? Isis is dead.”

 The sound of her voice told him
            she hadn’t known it was him until then
He could have walked away in that moment
            And never saw her again

 But he looked and she was trembling
            Away from the sunlight she stepped
God, for a second, it was her
            Under the tears that she wept

 And it all disappeared and fell away then
            The years dreaming of her face
Gone in a few seconds of knowing
            She betrayed everything in that place

 And those years hit Isis at that moment too
            as she looked at him crying and said
“Honey don’t look for me no more
            The Isis you once knew is dead.”

 Then the shadow of her disappeared
            Deep into that shack in the back
The color of her skin pale in the shadows
            And her eyes fading blue to black

 He felt the strength of his heart pounding
            Felt the blood rush in and out
Her eyes were blue, but it wasn’t her anymore
            “Isis is dead” he heard the crying voice shout

Wandering on the Moors

Endless stretches of heath wide and deep,
the roads winding through
dark mysteries of unrestrained emotion,
open, wet, and wild,
danger in the black hollows,
barren hilltops and deep secret valleys,
conjuring feelings of desperation,
foreboding in the mystery,
wandering, bound in the depth
of freedom without boundary,
the wanderer is hypnotized
in the mystery of the moors.

Desolate and uncultivated,
an endless expanse of crags and rocks,
billowing oceans that swell
and then fall half savage,
awesome the dangerous beauty,
wild in elemental nature,
pure spirit changeless in time,
seeking liberation in the deep and raw,
unforgettable in dreams primal wild.

But he can end up dead there
when dark night comes down
mingling the sky in bitter whirl
into wastelands of storm,
where violent winds thunder
and rattle overhead in fury:
then you can miss your road
in the haven and escape
without boundary.

The wanderer will be buried there,
when nothing else matters,
nothing can keep you.
He is bound there,
facing his other, no one knowing
which is which in eternal mystery.
“Feel it,” she says, “it comes straight down the moor –
do take a breath,”
for passion never lays unrequited,
for at last is the ultimate liberation,
in the boundary-less,
unfathomable moors.

Find em in a Gasoline Station

“Find em’ in a gasoline station and pour gasoline on em’…”
And just like that the Sinclair pump roared as loud as T-Rex
He tripped, he stumbled, maybe someone pushed him
But the hose he grabbed was a throat of spewing fuel
Back on his feet he fell, dropped by the spew of chocking octane
He rolled in the petrol, he clawed and scraped to escape the pool
And the howling face of fear smells like gasoline
And it burns red… when someone said…
“Find em’ in a gasoline station and pour gasoline on em’…”
“Now I need a cigarette… anybody got a light?”