Austin

Two stand as separate as the wind,

Their hearts divided by a chasm of indifference.

They are to each other faceless and unkinned.

Both ignorant and judging of the unknown fellow,

They each discovered as summer thinned.

Two struggle – breaking their sweaty backs,

To bring tall forests under their command.

Timbers are slatted into ashen tracks

Enterprise now curiosity – urging to span

And explore the savage beyond the valley cracks.

Two meet in blazes of fiery success,

Equally conquering the Divide.

Riveted – friendships are forged beyond stress,

But collaboration gives way to wintry pride.

Steel n’ smoke rain bloody tears of conquest

Two become one with violence and time.

The musical interlude of despair remains,

Gaunt, rusted, corpse trusses plunge into the Rhine.

The Divide resumes its airy, hot-headed house,

And one pays in bitterness and guilt for one’s crime.

– Yet –

Two gaze at one another in reminiscent hunger,

The two feverishly guilty who remain.

Aware of the ghastly – devouring void left asunder,

Each send out hopeful sinuous strands.

It’s a horrifyingly suspenseful dental surgery of blunders.

Mutual lust and self-loathing eventually effaces the Divide,

Two pulses melt into none and only their bridge remains sentinel outside.