Do Not Pass “Go”
I suppose the idea burrowed into my brain during my first upper-division literature course, which makes sense. It was Victorian literature, and the professor was a midwestern transplant who wore loafers to class and introduced Dickens in a way that actually made him interesting to me. She had mentioned her plans to spend the summer abroad in England, touring the homes of all her favorite Victorian writers. You can do that? I thought to myself, as if I had just discovered I was an adult and could eat all the candy I wanted. My imagination began stirring up a misty future that up until that point had been rather blank. That idea never really…
Into the Void
These four walls enclosed me So long I don’t remember Sunshine or moonlight Or much beyond broken promises No one made me And painted dreams I glazed myself. I daub another layer Actively awaiting the Jungles Cathedrals Cafés From my chimeric canvas.
A Box of Photos
There was a loud crash in the hallway After pulling out the Parcheesi And other dusty boxes that House fragments of faded memories Falling to the floor The photos Spill from the carton Fluttering To rest on the floor – – – We come from the land of hibiscus And plastic happiness Like so many Verdant kisses, it whispers a Foggy dream of the eternal Whatever you fancy If only Dreams were guarantees you could Redeem like coupons Exchanging Them one by one like so many Printed promises Yet we wither Under a foreign sun Languishing Against a backdrop of broken Dreams – – – This one particular snags my…
Shovel
He dug himself a hole in the ground a place to burrow dreams for safekeeping while he tended to responsibilities Locked them tightly in a brass tin and kept the key hidden from sight as dreams belong to youth and freedom in an age before lost chances and untraveled roads laid the tin down and shoveled layers of dark earth, blanketing wishes forgotten ambition. Neglecting the hole in the ground trudging in and out of the room that represented the key kept stowed away like buried treasure work clasps wrists together in irons of promises and paychecks a black and white way for which he did not remember asking as years accumulated in…
