(published in the Saint Louis County Library 2018 Celebrating Poetry e-book)

I don’t know why I came here,

why I was drawn to your earthly sound,

or the mystery of your barren ground

I travelled for love and stayed for the rain,

and love was being stranded on 13th st,

to behold the towering behemoths and bittersweet

Winds as they tore through the city streets,

I wondered if the desert winds of Petra

also roared and howled through sand and stone electra,

Deserts between us, people of sand and the stars,

vast barren fields lie fallow between the high rise

and the valleys below, whereupon eastern river silt the sun lies

Towering steelworks of wonder and awe,

delight the curious and guide the river’s flame;

Here lies a land none may claim.

Through the gate, iconic and untamed

to a land primordial , wild and loosed,

the underside or otherside coalesced, conduced,

Opened a door of their own,

to a world of men and iron, steel and shot,

to the dreadnaught and the land that the heavens forgot.

Primal verdant historic chaos-in-bliss,

the paradise on the shores of the crescent moon,

marred and silenced by the huntress’ golden harpoon,

Fisher of men, and fisher of the stars,

Sun lowers her cloak of roses and gold

Upon withered, fruitless daisies and marigolds.