They Who Stumble

Blessed are they

who run on ahead,

ignoring the signs,

the warnings in red,

the razor wire

strung out along

imagination’s borders.

They who stumble,

having only one shoe.

Who leap over ditches

and know all directions.

To all those on the lam.

Heavy is their burden

as we run them

into the ground.

Mordant are the plaints

of bloodhounds howling.

---

   The Twelfth Of Never

Soon, they assure us, soon.

When fish will sing

and the flagpole blossoms.

When it rains children

and the mule has foaled.

Gather up your impatience, they say.

Soon all shall be revealed.

When chicken have teeth

and the crawfish whistles.

On the seventh Thursday in November

and snowmen reign in the fires of heaven.

---

 Before The Dawn

A night so dark

mice huddle in terror.

So dark thieves fail

to venture far from home.

The fool cannot say

if his eyes are opened.

Moonless. Starless.

The blind leading the blind

on a grave-dark night.

As dark as a cellar.

As a wolf’s mouth.

The night when darkness fell,

as it continues to fall.

When every fearful thing

stops to listen.

---

Artist:

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with over 1,500 poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press); ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy; (Cawing Crow Press) and ‘Like As If” (Pski’s Porch), Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).