By Your Calculation...

The silence of beautiful voices haunts me like a cold winter night,
The stars above call without speaking,
And the faery ring around the Moon is at a quarter this sky,
Just a few hours from the rise of a brilliant Winter Sun.

Still you are swearing black-hearted and frigid,
So busy counting every snowflake in the pile,
Certain your wretched gold must lie beneath the bank.
And the glare of your Antarctic indifference may just kill us all.

Put a good woman away out of work in a dark night,
Silence the warmth of clever-jeweled voices,
For the pennies that lie upon that now bare floor shine to your fingers,
And the despairing silence is the easier course in this blizzard...

By your calculation.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 01/28/2005

Author's comments:
Barnes & Noble corporate has eliminated their Events Coordinator position,
and canceled all events at specific stores that were not meeting an un-specified
revenue volume. Of course it doesn't matter that the store where Plainfield Live Poetry
reads is in a subdivision that is currently building five thousand new homes within three miles of it,
or that they had a wonderful person in the position. I just got the news the day after one of
the best readings we've had, with things poised to begin growing. I'm choosing to look at it
as an opportunity to find a better venue, but it does chafe a bit, and I am holding hopes
that the gal that was handling events there gets a new gig soon.