Venice, evening breezes, the radio faint from the kitchen,
the parched pain of a life’s labor, leaves of greatness,
spraying into darkness, dangling limp in exhausted hands.

Waves of soft moon-dyed mist break purple on the rail,
the bubbles crest, exploding in canticles of silence.

Daub the salt-stained stigmata, open the weeping pores,
exude the horrors of hate, deceit, in a not-forgotten alien race.

Transcend the swimmer of a summer’s night,
who is drowned by the dawn of registered time –
drink this froth of fog with me, toast the dew of Ezra’s brow.

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Craig Kirchner thinks of poetry as hobo art. He was nominated twice for the Pushcart, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. After a writing hiatus, he is being published again in a dozen journals.