I can't see them (poem)

Jets cut across a quiet sky;
I brace for impact.
Wonder who and what will be hit,
caught up in fire and shrapnel.
Peace was a flammable promise
I’d hoped would never burn,
but now sovereignty is a threat
so bored strangers give the order.
All this beauty is temporary:
these stone walls will crumble,
filling the canal with rubble and ash –
the sun obscured by black smoke.

Promise me that day won’t come.
Lay me to rest in a quiet apartment,
curtains drawn over the windows,
so if the bombs come...

 

-Zero 

i am the ghost in the window (poem)

the apartment above the pizzeria is always dark
its windows are uncovered eyes watching passersby
university students stumble to the cafe or to the bar
they say if you stare long enough,
the shadows inside will shift, unsettled by your gaze,
but the windows will always meet you.
warm streetlight filters in through the billowing snow
the landlord says he always gets the rent on time
and when he closes late at night,
sobbing comes down through the walls.
on the street, drunk students wander to the next party
their laughter echoes and drowns the shadows out
leaving a figure standing alone in the window.

 -Zero 

Moondance (poem)

I always wanted another dance
to twirl in the moonlight with you.
Your hands in mine, we’d make the stars jealous
of all the romance we’d choreograph.
But we had never really danced,
that was all a dream I had as the music played,
as we stood there in your apartment half-drunk,
swaying awkwardly with my eyes on the floor
trying to follow the travelling bass and swing beats.
Your touch was paralytic, all-consuming,
accented by overwhelming fantasies called forever
while the full moon waned away to darkness.
Every song and dance begins and ends,
and with you, I could do neither.

-Zero

ghosts on a forest trail (poem)

I don’t see ghosts in trees.
Streams flow without hauntings,
the canopied sky empty of spectres.
But as I walk through quiet boughs
a chill creeps up my spine:

I am not alone.

Behind me I drag ghosts along
chained to each other, chained to me
over streams and under low hanging fruit.
I ask them about everything I see and feel,
“do you remember when...”

the forest exists only through spectral recollection.

 -Zero