--- R O N A L D   P A L M E R

        A stranger lurks:  beneath my skin:  beyond the blue bubble:
letters:  Hip:  Hop:  spray painted next to the pink swastikas: memorizing
my fears:  waiting to be reintroduced:  Konca Feliks:  come with me:  meet
your beautiful self again face to face:  stand before the fingerprinted
mirror in Block 21:  weep into me: through the yellow hills:  patched with
snow:  from my train window:  I squint down hill:   through vertical white   
lines of scattered young birches:  a German Shepherd:  scrambling to his
feet:  next to his backyard doghouse:  I hear myself thinking:  Thank God
he's short-chained: international rationalization of a rising new fascist:
he's barking in frantic three bark intervals:  bark bark bark:  then the
sliding of his paws:   pacing on the pitted ice:   failing at chasing: my
train:  eventually lies down again:   in a dirt patch within his bluish
circle of ice:    I carry this dog with me:    the rest of the way:   with
each barking echo:   my mind flings out like a solar flare:
        My train races past a long line of box cars:   heaped with chunked
coal:     fast-rocking on a parallel track:   opposite direction:
foooowump:  foooowump:     windows suction:  spontaneous whistling:  in the
cracks:  speed's singing through metal latches:  in the distance:  a town
approaches:  each coal-soured Church:   slouches in gloom:   recent  snow
dumped on the region:   only serves to annunciate:   Poland's palpable
muteness:  somber groups of elderly couples:   holding each other like an
apology:  at pedestrian stop lights:  each building begs to be questioned:
about their stone sculpted faces:   each window is framed by faces:  here
for example:   a missing slab of green concrete:  exposes the underside of a
plaster cheek:  another angel's eyes are a concentrated blindness: reaching
out to the tram-wires:   while everything sobs:  even my train window pulses
with a begging:   my arms limp:  sketching a world-map of this infectious
and eerie:   disappearing:   this time:  I walked the snow path alone: 
through the towering shadows of barbed wire:  this time I stood alone on
stained cement:  this time I closed my eyes:  scanning the toxic room: