On the Verge of Virgo Season

I look up at an iridescent moon

as her velvety tone fills my speakers.

The cadence of a truth teller

brings my eyelids down,

and all I can repeat is the word

Charlottesville.

August 12, 2017.

Unite the Right.

The siege of a battle cry

taking over an atmosphere,

becoming the point.

Noise pollution,

nuisance,

dangerous yet dismissed as annoying.

A wave not to ebb low,

catching force

from propellants.

Not something to fall asleep to.

Much realer than a nightmare.

Shifty,

but seldom collapsible.

Direct,

like someone telling you who they are.

Worse,

someone showing you exactly

who you are to them.

A cadence never to confuse

with a lullaby

or an exaggeration.

Tragically though,

someone’s dream.

Someone’s rally.

Someone’s instinct.

Dreamily,

the spooky overtones were casually rubbed out of our collective eyes.

August 12, 2019.

A reality insisting on birthright.

Our impulse to rub this feeling out of our eyes

still right below the surface,

as the rally cry builds into someone’s encore.

Someone pulling the covers

around them as they fall easily to sleep.

“Beloved” sounds in Morrison’s voice, “he was responsible for that, emotions came to the surface in his company. Things became what they were…The songs he knew from Georgia were flat-headed nails for pounding, and pounding, and pounding. Lay my head on the railroad line, train come along and pacify my mind…it was tempting to change the words.”