my private audience
the heart of 100,000 voices
cheering the hidden victory
of a cold and windy day
the half-punished gospels
of the extinct here-and-now
the crimeless trial
has no pause for lunch
life sings its chorus
at the midnight of history
the judges are sleeping
and will not tell us
what we’ve done
how busily
images carry the weight
of our uncertainty
and fill our baskets
with rotten apples
to nourish the golden worms
of an empty formula
while Christ’s disciples
lead us out of our darkness
into evil
with a calculated overkill
of time’s own determining
like the colors of fall
fading from meaning into bliss
the sirens of wayward winds
singing out a harmony
to moaning broken wings