Pedestrian Crossing

Background reading

1. The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, by Christopher Marlowe
http://www.poetry-archive.com/m/the_passionate_shepherd_to_his_love.html

2. The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd, by Sir Walter Raleigh
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/nymphsreply.htm

3. The Shepherd's Song, by Stellar

I can't hold time, nor could I dare
Lift up my eyes to cast down care,
To stay the winter from the spring
Or hold back night from her mourning.

The flocks do fly from field to fold;
The constant wind blows crisp and bold
Through temperate times, yet all remember
The hours spring the years December.

The flowers fade like cloud-filled skies;
I've seen them all through perfect eyes.
The moon will fall into the sea -
That promises mortality.

But, still the sun comes up at day
To let us dream our time away.
So come with me and let me prove
This living is an ageless love.

Our joys will end; our youth can't last,
Then, all the better, feast than fast.
The sun will fall into the blue -
I'll chase it while it follows you.

Before the breath slips from my tongue
This silent song won't fall unsung.
It's not your mind I mean to move
To live with me and be my Love.

And there was a war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great Dragon was hurled down - that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. (Revelation 12:7-12:9)

Whispering...

O' what foolish thing am i?
warmed by sleeping stars, i wake them.
i fly high in the darkest skies
and still i do forsake them.

those fires burn like hope
hope falls as rain and slips
into the cracks within my soul
like breath through purs'd lips.

still how can i hold the sky?
and though i had to fall,
i could not see past memory
and did forsake them all.

if only i
could fly
with them,
just a little higher,
i'd love them with compassion
and fuck them with desire.

then maybe i could drink those flames
instead of breathing them -
then hope would fall to parch'd tongues,
and rain
like tears,
and seem undone
that breath would fly to a dying son,
though lips could hold them - every one.

and i fall high
from out the sky.
and only now i see;
the stars were mine
if i'd but try,
but that will live
and i will die
inside my memory.

I wake
and sneeze.
I shake
from avarice and from fleas.


I walk
and talk a little.
I stalk
cold drinks and peanut brittle.


I hop
a train.
I stop
I'm slain.
Some prick,
from behind,
took a stick -
now I'm blind.


I fall
to my knees and my mettle.
I fight
(and bite a little).
I kill
(and die a little).


I weep
through black blood-soaked eyes; I scream.
I sleep
and dream.

Advance the morning nearer to thee
Who dearer to thee should stay,
And follow forward merrily
Or slip and walk away.

For this I've come and cannot yield,
As calm yields come a spark;
As leaping leaves the soul unhealed,
Unsatisfied and stark.

I deliberate
And wait.
Fell twenty stories, closed my eyes
Too late.

There is no scorn in me
Or trust,
Or will to whither on the tree
And plunge into the precipice.

To sulk about as sinned
Is too heavy on a mind
Left worn out and unmend
And altogether too unkind.