Vern Fein

Where does a heart go
when it cries out?
Does the heart hunt
for what makes it weep,
cry so hard it leaves home?

Search for a lost
spouse, child, pet,
roam the empty world
try to find what
will never be again.
Is finding nothing
the only solace
that can stop the tears
and bring us home?

At home, the rooms
look the same
but a stark absence
sits in every corner,
immovable until time
makes it disappear.

Thoroughbreds blister to the top
of the stretch, heading for home.

So are we.
We hit the bend of the turn,
aged decrepitude looms.

Rounding off a full life,
headed for home.

Not sure what is home.
Not sure how long
the stretch extends.

Finish strong.

You treat my heart like a cat treats a mouse.
Pawing,
toying,
taking your own sweet time.
Until you pounce,
kill,
leave a partly eaten heart
in some corner.
Sweet, sickly purr.
Off again for another.

Open the door.
Gingerly.
Who might be there?
It is the stuff of restless dreams.
Recall the Grimm tale
sisters who
spat vipers or
spoke jewels.
Go inside anyway.
See who is sitting on the sofa.
Stare back at the pain.
Open your mouth.
Say it.
Even if ashes fall on the floor,
Together you can sweep them up.

What if all the stores
collapsed into rubble
hauled away?
Or disappeared into the sky
like some concrete Rapture,
all the children left behind
no way to buy new toys
no need to wheedle parents?

Children look at playthings
in their homes,
broken, rusted, boring.

What for
the children of Eden
had Adam and Eve stayed,
eschewed the apple?

Skip rocks in a stream,
swing on a tree branch,
fruit wars,
count the stars,
love their pets,
outrace the four rivers.

an egg of pain
fingers flutter atop
sway and fro
what can break the pain?
song snaps glass
a song can…

shell crack
struggle out

love

flex wings

sing

The sun she became a woman
and spread her hot legs
for the young man in the moon
and oh what a wild child
that Earth is.
Never gives you the cold shoulder like Mercury,
the orgasmic war cry of Mars,
tantalizing sighs of Venus,
runs cold, rock-strewn rings around you,
or up and disappears like dark, irrelevant Pluto.

Just lives in blood and sorrow
and the ecstasy of its
history until
it will turn over in bed at last
and do itself in,
suicide by spoil.

Laughter in sad. No joy in moil.
Nix snicker at sob. Nor smile
at a broken heart.
At no time, a peal of tears.
Mirthful melancholy. Mourn merrily.
Unhappy cackle.
Josh a weeper. Joke despair.
Yuk no yew. Paint blue with hilarity.
Not guffaw at awful.
Deign chortle at cry.
Forget hearty grief.
Neither giggle at the grave or die laughing.

Never!