Dancer, Like A Feather

He floats like a feather on air.
She can see him moving --
But she can't see how he dare
Twist and spin like a record grooving.

She cups her fingers free and loose
Around her chin and mouth
And imagines a Canada goose
Returning from further South,

Soaring over her head,
Her hair and ears and brain.
Or else she imagines instead
That her love can make it rain.

But now her attention's arrested;
He has taken custody.
They have yet to be tested,
But they know that nothing is free.

The stop button has turned back
The advance of the music's flow;
The heart began to crack
Inside the stereo

But somehow it goes freestyle,
And somewhere the sound's still playing:
In the off-key hum from behind her smile,
In the tender things he's saying.

Doleful Noon

All alone this Tuesday lunch
When the sky has reached potential
When the sky-dust has a hunch

And absorbs the midday punch
Of the light before these eyes
It can reach, or utilize
Any process providential
To uplift and subsequential
Movement to that effect.

So there is only to reflect
On emotion confidential
-- But only what you might expect.

Ice sparks just inside the skin:
Is it cold fireworks snapping,
Scraping, tickling and tapping
With needle-claws digging in
Against the body's trapping?
Against the frail wrapping?

It shivers in the channels
Along down to my fingers.
It rings around and 'round;
It sings without a sound
That a bat could even see
And no cell phone ever found.

Is it a phantom dead and fading?
Sneaking, crawling from behind?
Is it in the body and spirit
Messing up a cracking mind?
If I turned around, oh hell,
What exactly would I find?

Paralyzed by icy rockets,
Tight fists shaking in my pockets
Unprepared for any kind
Of thought or word that could remind
About the past that raises panic
Behind the face and strikes me blind.

Its cause is buried so deep
That I die each time I sleep
So I never have to dream
And see again those things I saw
That made my sense of self feel raw,
Exposed like sand before a wind;
And see again the threat of end:
The end of good, of every friend,
To think of it was to scream.

All the horror my eyes could thaw
To melt across the brain and draw
Reactions forth to say and send;
My only hope was my only flaw.
At the last I had no tears to shed
There weren't enough for all the dead
But something must grow from deadly seed:

I'd seen horror and sorrow beyond all need
I had witnessed every evil deed.
Now whenever I look, my eyes start to bleed.

Lessons Learned

I'll raise my hand (there is glass in the window)
When I don't know the answer (it's too strong to crack).
And say your name; (there's a door at the back)
It will be enough for me. (For emergencies.)

And in the end, (when all is lost)
When the questions are harder (When we learn the cost)
We'll spend our money (Light it like tobacco.)
On the things that were free. (I am a bird with insect wings)

With two raised hands (stretched like rubber bands)
I've long stopped wondering (when you don't answer)
The questions that scare you (the ones you avoid)
When the answers are easy (and the exit destroyed).

Lines of Horizon

Wreaking havoc on our gravity
(Fire endures eternity
Lunging ravenous for this,
Only to snap back and always miss.)

Shoes might as well be made of cement;
Our soles kick against the firmament,
Desperately clinging like spider's feet
To patio, grass, even garden seat.
A jump is a failure before
It even begins to hope to soar.

The heart mocks the eyes
When they see the wrong size.
The blue is so close to our fingers
But reach subsides although longing lingers.

Fingertips bleeding through penny-red hair.
The pain is hard, but barely there:
This pain we feel like a surgical knife.
"If only I could, for once in my life,
Cold turkey leave this dragging earth.
Like a more languid second birth.
Wash me sudden in icy cloud bath.
Show me the widest, freest blue path."

Looking at imagined lines between sky
And the world where all we can do is try.

A Glass of Scotch

And thoughts for good company
On a Christmas afternoon.

A loaf of hopefully.
A slice of soon.

My life is not in a coffin,
But living it is like a poem.

The routine rhythms often state
Their intent to be ignored.

It's just a nothing; more to hate.
A tick to keep me bored.

The time it takes to wash my hands
Or light a cigarette

Is realized in the siphoning sands
And hardened lumps of regret.

Skyscrapers and Brick Walls

City where I've never been
On my knees I rest my chin
Lean my shoulder to the side;
Against the garden wall I hide,

And here I dream; no place I've seen
No place I've known, or ever been,
But I imagine: lights so bright;
Streets slick-cold and wet tonight,

Buildings building their own heights
Platforms for the seagulls' flights
Glass and steel climb up the scaffold.
See the clouds above? They're baffled;

The earth sends up these silver spears...
Heaven's been wary of them for years.
Sky's just space, and it's space they're poaching,
Sharply scraping and encroaching.

City where I've never been
I have to blink and count to ten
To remember where I am today
The place I probably will stay:

Sitting by my garden wall
Familiar and no fun at all.
The city conquering the sky--
It's there I wish someday I'll fly.