THAT OLD 3 AM RAIL
by
Will Mayo
Once I took a stroll into a dying memory,
with two friends lying dead in the gutter
and with two pence in my one pocket.
All the barrios were shuttered.
No one would let me in.
And the lamplights were capped
with the cracked and fading glass of a broken bulb.
While windows of vandalized stores
were closed at half mast,
and people stared at a figure that set no cast,
I walked toward the grave of a bridge with no brine,
where I saw my shadow
lying on the railroad tracks,
waiting on the 3 AM train from East Central.
Within ten seconds of a narrow moon,
the locomotive came on by,
its coal burner set to fire on a broken stove,
and its wheels as high as the Mayor's house,
while steam pocked with specks of motes
poured from its chimney of cast iron.
And this old 3 AM rail trampled and cranked
over that dark shadow I'd once lost,
driving it into the ground,
down into the winter's layer of deep snow.
Then as the cars and cabs drove by and past,
over the hill and toward the valley of Monocacy,
I realized with my own regret and my own fear
that this train hadn't run in many a year.
And after minutes and seconds of waiting,
I reached down toward those crackling tracks,
and found my shadow,
somehow whole as if untouched,
but fragile like a friend.
I wrapped it about me like a warm coat,
as I left the grave of old 3 AM,
looking for a job and a companion,
while other mists and other shadows
rose from a bridge with no rail and no brine.
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DO YOU KNOW?
By
Will Mayo
If only words could carry as much weight
as my thoughts can.
Sinking like a stone
to the bottom of a well of forgetfulness.
For more thoughts to come.
For more dreams to follow.
If only time could be held like a fist,
squeezing out all lucid moments
till dreams sift out
like an hourglass's broken stone.
Shifting sands of an eternal desert
as far as the eye can see.
Or would want to.
If only wolves bayed at sound,
instead of moon.
Calling forever for sun to follow
till the end of time.
Till the end of dreams.
If only madness were a virtue,
instead of a sin.
Then we would all dress in costumes of the dark,
and pretend to be mad.
Even when we weren't.
But dreams are not sand.
Nor can time carry an eternal stone.
Instead words are lost in the midst of forgetfulness.
And we are forever wondering why.
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The World Is My Friend
by
Will Mayo
The world is my friend
and I hold it near for warmth.
The shopkeeper on the corner
who bids me hello.
The cop on the beat
who nods and tips his hat.
An old lady who gives me bread on a sunny day.
The youngster who shares my coffee
on a cold winter morn.
Even the dealer in the alley
passing out his goods to the passersby.
I call him my friend
though I have nothing to buy
and he nothing to sell.
But my greatest friend is the world's only companion.
When the dark wraps a little too close
and I fear the earth to fall beneath my shadow
then I look out my window and see the sun rising.
And once more the earth holds me close
as I count the minutes beneath her feet.
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AMELIA
By
Will Mayo
Her mouth was all full of a kiss.
Her lips fluttered
as her eyelashes sighed,
then melted into a cloudy night.
And always one yard away she stood,
never closer,
never further from the embrace that killed
a like or a dislike.
Though she never cared for a gender,
and her mind was torn
between one and another,
she spoke only in the argument
that conceded a little death in a new birth.
Then, slowly,
she packed her purse all tight
for the night,
and walked into the twilight
that was only a sunrise
between the barren hills of forgetfulness.
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