Clouds that pass you by, en masse,
Masses pass you by like clouds;
Crowd yourself among the finds,
Find yourself amid the crowds

Steer within the floating ways,
Float inside the steerage class;
Live for love and love to live,
Serve as your own
Fortinbras

Storekeepers who
Cover their walls with
Merchandise, cramming as much
As they can possibly sell
Into as neat a space as possible —

Buyers, looking for bargains,
Living somewhere between
Hope for a miracle and
Grim acceptance of reality —

And one watching,
Understanding nothing
Of the language being spoken,
But seeming to understand perfectly

We scramble,
Every Christmas,
To deliver

When it’s not the gift
That matters, but

The giver

The mass awaits,
The human mass –
The swirl of all
That comes to pass,
Each man and woman,
Lad and lass,
With stories told
In steel and glass,
Initials on
An overpass,
And notes we pass
In back of class.

The mass awaits,
The surging throng –
With passions hidden,
Deep and strong,
And hopes that thrive
Though time grows long,
And choices made,
Both right and wrong;
With poems mumbled
Into song,
And nights where we
Just tag along.

The mass awaits,
It’s time is here,
For one like me
Who sees the mass

With fear

The world’s a marketplace; a din –
The clamor and cacophony,
Persistent change and novelty,
  That we all live within —
  Within the noise and din.

The world’s a marketplace, and we
Are never really settled in;
We stop, and then begin again,
  In bedlam, dressed like anarchy,
  We’re both restrained and free.

We seek a temporary space
To buy some hope – a word, a kiss —
Our booth to find, somewhere, in this
  Chaotic human race —
  This life, a
  Marketplace