the old house speaks to the sunset

a hidden pipe leaks momentous secrets

blackwater tears dripping emotions

eccentric histories from a time long gone

a time of electric ambition and magnificent failures

a faulty house off the grid set back from any road

a lone man raises an obscure weathered flag at night

a man born then but alive now

caged in a matter-of-fact form that amused him

his internal dialogue marched thoughts backward

to a time when the city bustled and dreams burned

in upward incendiary octaves of fire

sounding off the authentic passions

that men died for

when new alloys were forged

from incessant attacks of belief

where flocks of birds centered their dizzying heights

on an unfathomable trail

abandoning secular hope

and carving the way like hieroglyphic snakes

roving an undercurrent to the spirit fuse

this set certain beings apart from the crusted hearsay

and nebulous small-talk bubbling in the morass of ordinary men

a conflagration of pitiless ideals soon built cover

oil, diamonds, coal, gold were discovered and hideously sought

fostering derricks to mine the fantasy hopes of man

and it was not long before the idols of the clocktower blessed the day

and women opened up with clandestine ointments

creating a petting zoo of zealots encouraging their demise

new and fertile oils were born

men triumphed their way through oil slicks

and jagged mining camps discovering new uses

for the substances of their failed efforts

then… inside a sullen hour of the day

time declared his birth

and now it is only a man sitting on a porch

watching the threads of his flag fringe

the house

a layered frontice with wrap-around histories

letting light in for the first time

while truth meandered back into the house

settling into dust on the pages of a book

while he is alive now waiting

and watching

and sitting

and listening to the drip drip drip…