There are new taxonomies of cold
Outside, and I wanna be alone that's why
I been dreaming and it's not a dream of home,
Capsize on an odyssey, that's gotta be the phone, snap eyes half open

Alarm app muttering a night song
Up at night, I'm forever sleeping with the lights on
But not even getting out of bed and the sight's wrong
Flickering, a second trying to figure why the light's gone

It's a lot of frozen night-stuff:
Twenty days' rain from topographies of ice-dust
Water vapor atoms losing charge like a light does
Charge of the light brigade, lightning til the lights bust

Transformers smashed on the power lines
Dew on the grass when the shower dries
Pre-dawn dark in the house, pass an hour by
Time I never know if I'm devouring or devoured by

----

Shoes on, coat buttoned on my neck
Stagehands still home, know-nothing on the set
Every kid grows up, growing stuff into a nest
All the neighborhood's dark, trees brushing to the west

The middle distance towering in the walk
And I edge about random encounters out in the fog
And setting aside the starlight you can't see a thing
It's a daytime negative, a landscape in ink

----

So, since the lack of light reduced the consumption
Of books and other stuff, I thought I'd use it for something
Break a lantern out and walking through my usual junctions
Dead branch filling every couple cubits with crunches

Stalk in the breeze, my talk was awkward with keys
I'm pitching lines out, separate the troughs and the peaks
You catch the crows on the road when the flock's indiscreet
And one house has water gush onto the rocks in the street

Keeping on the move and glaring back at the moon,
Repairman passing by, I do it because I do
And I'm blind, scrawling chickenscratch notes on a page
Quoting thoughts, how the wind could've blown me away

Downhill's a vale full of mist I could fall through
Rain slick road to the kingdom of a lost few
Backing up, frost in my soft shoes, gloss views
Branch black, moss blue, world in a costume

----

Shoes on, coat buttoned on my neck
Stagehands still home, know-nothing on the set
Every kid grows up, growing stuff into a nest
All the neighborhood's dark, trees brushing to the west

The middle distance towering in the walk
And I edge about random encounters out in the fog
And apart from the starlight you can't see a thing
It's a daytime negative, a landscape in ink