Outlier

Realizing someone must extend
across the divide, I slipped off
my comfortable coat
and stepped out on the bridge.

Coldness and isolation beset me
as I cautiously tread on
each of the footing ropes.
I had become an outlier.

Wondering if this was sacrifice,
I glanced back to note my missing coat
among the stirring and anguished crowd
and felt no less lonely.

Dogs Don't Bark at Parked Cars

He surrendered his life like a well worn lease
through the narrow eyes of the law,
having sloshed through puddles of spiritual darkness,
feeling fearfully delectable to the variety in animal tastes.

He took his last breath.
We call it death, the absence of life;
but his energy's complexity paid homage to his gratitude
for all those who strove to make his world a better place.

Coldness sat in like the relevance of his humanity,
escorting him into the abyss before morphing into fractals
condensed in voluminous clouds of statistics.
Data reigns and showers all who shelter, cup, or drown.

Some drenched in pools of spiritual darkness
like those dropping the floor from under him face down;
Some like him, sacrificed as dead weight under
a constellation of cacophonous pitter-patter tweeter chatter.

Left to float like shining oil on broken pavement,
evaporating senselessly from lidless bell jars,
oblivious to the dog whistles of  credulity and self-delusion,
yet knowing that dogs don't bark at the parked cars.