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** Marilyn F. Kraus **
Inevitability
Clouds seem in no hurry to move from here;
mountains cradle them and the wind is lazy.
The sun has better things to do and moves on.
Rain, however, likes this sort of place,
willing to let loose into this space
bringing down waters that bathe nothing
as you sit in a puddle -
which one doesn’t matter.
The water is warm, and feels good on your face.
Once your clothes are thoroughly soaked,
they seem more comfortable against your skin.
It’s the drying out that makes more trouble;
the wind chills you,
hurting your eyes.
It should just keep raining.
Francis
Edges of your sleep are hard.
Small drops of you disappear slowly,
escaping into the pillow.
I hear the loud blood-letting of your dreams.
Further down a child is crying.
Wipe the dampness from your forehead.
Drift into the street. Follow footsteps
just several ahead in this darkness
drawing darkness, drawing together those
who would walk with you briefly,
but leave in distraction.
They speak borrowed monologue
like bad lip sync - dysrhythmic,
sweet sounding noises that stroke your neck.
Gather these vaporous words and swallow them.
Others pause momentarily to take you in -
some strange painting,
requiring tilt of the head, half closed eye.
You live here now-
one who has glimpsed his own exit.
The evolution of this present streams from you,
strange scarf around the neck of a ghost-
uneventful coming into a spectator’s paradise,
gradual consumption by sins of omission.
Lay your hands upon street dogs;
heal their wounds. Your thorns persist.
Sit heavily on this street, full moon warming you,
tattered black coat and mismatched socks.
The sidewalks open and flow with neverwas.
Be mindless of the bleeding of broken dark words,
the dry heaving of this place. The dogs stay close,
your dyslexic thoughts clear to them.
The footsteps are in your head.
House
The view through our window this evening
is endless as your gaze -
past guardian trees, across the street
of occasional people
covered in a comfortable twilight shawl,
randomly moving through last fall
into next-time-perhaps.
Your eyes stop to rest on a house several down.
Brown stone, low shrubs, two stories,
dusted with snow in just such a way,
that house.
A large picture window
fills the front with light, voices,
people you don’t know but recognize -
recurrent dreams that slip away
each morning and wait.
It is this imagining that makes you cry.
You, who sits outside reading lips and eyes
until you fold into thin longing -
and the view through that window is endless.
Marilyn F. Kraus says: "I am an over achiever as an under published writer. I have been writing for years as a serious hobby, although I have rarely formally submitted in the past. But I have begun my collection of rejection slips, and although modest in size at this point, I have aspirations to one day wallpaper an entire room with them, like Ol’ F. Scott (he did a bathroom, right?). Well, you’ve got to have a dream…
I grew up in New Orleans, and have moved around a few times before settling in Chicago in 1999. I have always written, because I love to write - both prose and poetry. I feel best when I am writing, whether or not anyone reads it (although of course that’s always a plus). And my family tree qualifies me for this creative obsession- it is full of artists. And great stories of the South. So I write, while of course keeping a day job in medicine, in the neurosciences."
Copyright 2006, all rights reserved.
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