When the night

When the night finally manages to lie still

heard are the trains rolling over the sleepers

slow heartbeat rumbling across the city – dadum dadum –

necessary toil in the necessary dark – dadum dadum –

obvious sleepers booming through the slithering lights

an even resistance against the order of things

– dadum dadum – dadum dadum –

as the night inert shepherds the weak into her lap

the industrious secrets follies, passions and weariness

collars up their feelings against the cold – dadum dadum –

somehow warmth to be found nearer the bodies

and no longer in the broad daylight of – dadum dadum –

– dadum dadum – legitimacy belongs to the wolves

– dadum dadum – where make-believe sleepers

lie still lest they stir up some restless memory

– dadum dadum – and petrified – dadum dadum – let it

steal their soul – dadum dadum – dadum dadum – dadum dadum –

The Chest

That's a broken piece of furniture

which, missing a leg

jams the drawers and the doors –

rendered useless.

Moved from corner to corner

until it no longer fits

out of fashion

out of usage

hauled to the attic or the cellar –

too sturdy to easily yield to the axe

once had too much value to be burnt –

so leave it then;

broken heirloom too cumbersome to change house

only to change hands without being touched –

so leave it there, then.

The house will go down when it does,

surviving that very house perhaps.

Why did that leg go –

those who could have remembered are long gone –

but the chest, stayed.