Prayer for Dead-Letter Office Unemployment

Wiping the “Return to Sender” off my forehead

because you’ll know yourself, you’ll know me
an inverted introvert, and only try to satisfy–
cause you’d have to create me to satiate me,
please, my pretty paradox don’t pass me by,
for my life would only lead up to that moment,
when these words cease to be sent back to me.

you’ll know how to tackle and rustle leaves,
chuckle at half my crap, and soothe the other,
when to discuss metaphors, death, and eternity,
and keep my mind and matter grinding away, yet loved–
carrying me back to hearth to nuzzle with my heart
until intensifying my passions reap responsibility.

Scarved leaves parachute

scarved leaves parachute to block my way,
oblivious to my important conversations inside,
“We’re dying” they say in solemn faces drifting–
ignoring me ignoring them?
and being a Goodfella, I grind their uncovered graves into the newly laid concrete,
bloody gray– “Bloody right,
we’re dying.” I say
and walk on.

Campus morn

Dried blood brick and amber leaves petrify in memory,
White oaks mirror a horizon-hung sun blinding
Aldersgate glistens in algae-ic glow
and the cupola scrutinizes the grounds
festooned in frosty, sapphire shadows
while violet, autumn ghosts polish
campus concrete to a pasty panache.