Is something wrong upstairs or do I dream?
Can it be no one’s home any time I call?
The phone rings and rings but no answer.

Were I to take my shoes off before entering
a home only ghosts would rightly occupy
maybe I’d have luck reaching someone,
soul to harvest, voice from the past, sylph.

I thought I could get by probing inner light,
which is said will always shed new truths.
But like Jed who was robbed by a stripper
and vowed never to go back to Big Al’s,
held up forlorn in his studio apartment,
spoke to no one because he was spooked,
soaked his feet in apple cider vinegar,
trolled political activists on the web
admitting he never felt quite whole,
lamented he gained no tangible reward
despite praising a benevolent God,
I walk solemnly in the cold winter park.

---

Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications in the U.S. and abroad, including Taj Mahal Review, Poetry Quarterly, Literature Today, Poetry Salzburg, and South African Literary Journal. He has published three books of poetry, Ballad of Billy the Kid, Monterey Bay Adventures, and Mercurial World.