Street lights sign in as dusk resigns to darkness. Scattered shadows of leaves dance on midnight sidewalks. Homes sleep in silence. Dark breezes lift curtain edges, creating life from worn cloth. Porch lights dot the galaxy of streets. Picket fences keep strangers away but ghosts pass through freely. A train whistle, distant yet sharp, bleeds … More MIDNIGHT
Hallway footsteps create a sad rhythm. Neon lights break over cracked linoleum. The elderly carry groceries in a cold wind; their facial wrinkles are road maps of experience. Young people speak of someplace else. They gather under stars of tragedy, dreaming in black and white; visions unworthy of being in color. Their lives grasp … More SOMEWHERE STRANGERS
Street people sing the change cups full. They dance without care, laughing wide and loud. They search for the weak, catching their eyes, reeling them in; the uninvolved walk and avoid. The corner becomes a one ring circus. Traffic releases thunder. Children point. The elderly understand the caldron of poverty. Midnight ends the show. A … More RINGMASTERS
Stop signs with bullet holes and a broken billboard oversee a wide intersection where the desert has no friends. Roadside trash lay mangled under scrub brush. Rain has no business here. Insects run safely across the road; shade belongs someplace else. Lightening scrapes a distant mountain top. Sheets of blue rain find someplace else to … More KEEP ON WALKING
It’s the end of where I’ve been and the beginning of where I need to go. It’s a long road I’ve shortened. While standing under the shade of where I want to be, I hold time and watch its hands; it stops for no one. Every memory has its own weight. Darkness has the … More TRY AGAIN
I am the undercurrent of your shadow. A breath between beats. Breezes move past like years of facts we claim to achieve. Words become festivals of flow; engines of fire, strong with grace. Sometimes when alone, memories speak to me while angels weep of loss, under the welcome cover of clouds. It’s all simple in … More IT ALL ADDS UP
Years hold the pictures as youth fills in where legs ran forever; trees envied the quickness. Warm days touch the side of faces; a silent act of unconcern. Empty chairs hold the shadows several times removed; their song is a story of before. Fondness eventually waits for no one. The clock of seasons protects its … More A PATH THROUGH
A back porch guitar man sends a song into an alley. Sweat stains his hat and baptizes his shirt. He sings of cards, gin, smoke and lies. Sure fingers free the fear he protects. Pigeons rustle nervously above. Strangers shuffle by, chasing last night’s dreams. A cat circles a trach can. He pushes … More HIS PLACE
The intent of a rising sun encourages the impatience out of night. From the abyss of dreams we are renewed, like ribbons unraveling while lifted from the floor. A part of us protests, exciting the brimstone from and anxious song we hum while putting on ragged jeans a chain and a cross. Tattoos tell a … More UP
There’s a mirror that reveals the truth and an hour glass with a voice. Dripping water tells the story, where long tracks hide distant whistles. In the background the earth groans and the trees are its gray hairs. There’s a feast on the table, on the other side of the best door. It’s improbable to … More SAFE COMFORT
Roger Singer 