The soul wrapped in beauty

 Wrapped inside that package you wear
I wonder if you truly are as beautiful on the inside
As you appear to be on the outside
Or is it just fancy gift paper?

Will we not find anything inside
Fingers unpeel you to get a feeling
Yet you won't open
In the shade under the tree you sweat

I come with cool water
Attempt to convince you the world is not as bad as you think
But words don't come 
can I convert silence into meaning?

Absence into presence
To see what's inside of you
Is it something sparking?
Something to accompany me

Or just some elaborate game?
for broken hearts and rainy days
Partially opened me eyes have dipped inside
Twas not something I recognized

Just a deeper mystery
I want to feel with entire being
With my heart and every thought
With the electricity of birth

With the raging static of death
I want in Like I know the mine may be viable
May have what I have for a lifetime sought
I therefore unwrap your rock

Protected from the southerly

 Protected from the southerly wind

The palm tries to survive

The worst of frosts will pass

It will stay straight and spread

The wellington train will pass it

Looking into the back garden where it grows

It's deal of fame unknown

It's audience almost always the same

But number of observers always different

It shouldn't be growing there a boy said to his mother

Trees like that only grow in the tropics

His mother looked out at the trunk and fronds

Maybe it will die this winter she thought to herself

Years later when the woman had retired

her son gone to Australia

she still saw it there in that back yard, protected from the southerly

Amenities of the plaza

There was both an icecream shop
And a cinema inside the hotel
The cinema was open
The icecream shop closed

In the open foyer
Gardens were lit up
Suddenly there seemed no reason to leave
Morning was almost gone

Midday was calling 
And it was time to return
Cross the city somewhere closer to home
But in the warm end of the morning

Tranquility stole the skin and worry
It was unnecessary or even a crime to rush
 

The pope's inheritance

 The pope's special families
congregated around the lower level of the house
Disputing how they would share in the forbidden money
How it would be practical

Each family stating how they were related to the pope
And how much money they thought they were entitled too
It was a life time of deliberation
In the the end it was distant relatives with the gift of the gab

Hotel vagabond plaza

 I couldn't get into the motel
the gate was locked and wrapped in wire
It was impossible 
Then way the wires were tied
It looked like it could be electrified
The dark short hair and fat framed glasses
Looked into me as I attempted to jiggle the door
I wanted in and clerk wanted me out
There were so many repairs to make
Why was the clerk doing those things
There was no distracting the clerk
But I waited for hours
Slipped in unnoticed
Walked over the ancient thin beige carpets
Got lost in the labrynth of corridors
Searching for a courtyard
To breathe fresh air again

Atop the shelf

 On top of the library shelves
It took hours to get there now finally
I am two stories high
trying to keep my balance

One whole shelf fell as I climbed
I steady myself here on top
And find strange items there
An ashtray and a houseplant

The librarian doesn't see me
She towers seven feet high
slipping books into gaps
A literary nun

I look down from the shelf top
Stuck there between an ashtray and houseplant

Dust igniter

 Walking slowly up the drive way 
Under the plaza hotel hitherto utter calm
I carry a chain almost as thick as my arm
dozens of car carcasses littered the lane

Mechanics and thieves worked under the overhang
A tunnel entrance that had caved in and looked like a garage
The chain moved like a thick python in my hands
I swung it and hit it against the dry soot and sand

Dust plumed and drifted until the all was obscured
So thick was it, that the eyes were assaulted sick
Unable to make out shapes encouraging panic
I swing the chain it's tip hitting panels, windows

Occasionally flesh
Often just the air
But dust did settle
And not soul had remained in the lane

Under Plaza hotel