Visions from a dance floor

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the way the dance works is to move to and fro, forward and back and
escape any sense of planning or prior consideration but rather
move with the groove, move with the smooth buttress roll
just go with the flow, the schoolkids said, or rather that's
what they're rumored to have said.

the steps are pitter-patter, then shatter-shatter, forget that you ever knew
something of a different beat, just move and greet the one to you're
right, then dance a little to the one to you're left, soldier-boy, soldier-boy
or is it soulja boy they said?

I don't know these beats, don't know these rhythms, never really did but
I move with them to the right, to the left, down below then back up, up, up
and dipping down into the ground like you always had done before, or so
they tell you so, they tell you so.

the world moves to a certain groove, they say, you gotta move up then
down, then all around and follow the steps of a stranger's voice, they say
that heaven is for fools and work for cowards, and only the brave meet
the dance floor, and so we groove, and we are all sinners who make this
world into something it was never meant to be.


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Voyeur to heartache

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Voyeur to heartache 

I heard it from my apartment window,
     "oh I hate you, oh how I hate you"
and sobbing tears that bore upon the wind and
     fluttered like paper cuttings of dead trees
     forming the shallow graves of deadening dreams
and a sound of alarm within my soul
     before I realized that this was the world
     that stories like this are always told
     that nothing new enters, that nothing old leaves
and returning to my regular haze
     for there is no calm for the sane
     in a chaotic world, tragedy rules
     the center is on the outside and
     the outside in the middle and
     that is how it is, and was, and always shall be.
so says, this voyeur to heartache. 

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Summer Heat

---------

the summer heat forces you to
repeal the layers used to protect and
return to that state in which you were born
sheetless, coverless, naked forms

outside the sky is grey and worn
as summer heat descends on early days
and drives the creatures back into their graves
sent scattering from sudden storms

against the broiling, rolling waves
the glittering crests of ships dipping and
form amidst the summer heat, a pink sky
recalls all beings to shallow swarms

from within blares the hollow sigh
of speakers, drumming meant to drown out the
world outside as two become one but in
vain - none escape the summer heat

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Truth

-----

took a taxi cab from the airport to Denver
          talked to the cabbie, said his kids
               lived in Georgia, Savannah
                    had grown up and left

told him I was Catholic, my friend and I,
     said he was Catholic too, before
          he converted a month ago

he said it was about the food,
     that they fed you better
          in that Christian church
   
I smiled, mumbled something
      about trying to find truth
           'whatever you believe,
                fine with me
           as long as you truly 
                believe it'

but he simply shook his head,
    at thirty years my senior knew
         what a load of crap that was
                  for if that were the case

why if that were the case, then truth wouldn't
          be any sort of thing at all,
    
                                now would it?

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Progress

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Upon once a time
the social designation
was that man should never fly,
yet man does fly.

Upon once a time
the crucial acclamation
was that man should never reach space,
yet man has shot past space,
and reached the moon.

Upon once a time
the voice of a hundred nations
declared that peace should never be,
and it has yet to be seen
and perhaps, it shall never be

But though the law of gravity is to bring things down,
it is the instinct of man to rise.

-----------

He sits

----------

He sits hanging from the dinosaur-skeleton
of the old railroad track that led over the hill but now,
leads over the stream and then disappears into space
with no destination assigned.

He sits hanging with his legs drooping low
having walked the path below, and finding that time
is ripe with the ripe of the great white peach in the sky
with no intimation designed.

He sits hanging in wondering awe and concern,
hearing the footsteps of those gone before and below
a thousand feet against the winding path beneath and
a thousand more to come.

He sits hanging, hanging, legs drooping low
With questions in mind but no answers to show and
the night pressing nearer and darker and shadows
arriving to join him.

He sits, wondering, seeing the great crowd below
and around him, and above him, and all those before
who had come to that place in the dark of the night
to ask the question of humanity's plight.

He sits, wondering, if ever the night
had answered a single man yet.

------

Between the crevasses of toes

Weird poem, then again, weird idea.

---

Sometimes he stayed in the shower too long,
not to get any cleaner, he
had been clean for nearly fifteen minutes now
by the general sense of the word
for no one can really, totally erase
those little bits of sand and
stains, between the
crevasses of
their toes

The faucet silver and the water cold,
but it began to heat up, and
soon he felt the scorching heat and pressure new
that became one sense, one sense alone
shshshshshsh-shashashashasha
ah-awe-ah-awe-ah-awe-wash
in between the
crevasses of
your toes

The salty grine and windswept sweat flaking,
falling to the dead-skin floor as
the snake's old cage replaced by freshly-laid silk
and rattling pebbles come crashing down
to join the sea of past-selves gone on-by from
that place he once wished to hide
in between the
crevasses of
his toes

But heat too must lose itself, and becomes cold
and vanishing, must now replace
With passion, solemnity, with fire, stillness
and garnish all space in sterile air
for no one can really, totally escape
for too long, anyway, the
solemn space in
the crevasses
of toes

And without the pounding shawl of water-fall,
he hears the city and the snakes,
which only serve to accentuate
the solemn space placed
within the crevasses
of toes

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The cadaver's dare

This poem takes quotes from this article, on the trial of a teenager in Missouri who killed her nine-year-old neighbor. It definitely touches on darker themes, so if that scares you, don't read ahead:



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The cadaver's dare

She was fifteen when she killed her neighbor,
     a week before she wrote:
"If I don't talk about it, I bottle it up,
     and when I explode someone's going to die"

She went to school for about a week and,
     dug two graves, one round one square
"I just fucking killed someone," she said.
     in the diary as she lay later in bed.

It wasn't such a difficult thing, she found
     she learned enough in science class
incision middle, cut straight across, pull out
     then tack it up - it's not so hard

"I strangled them and slit their throat," she wrote
     blood still seeping beneath her skin,
"and stabbed them now they're dead," she ended proud
     blood still crying from the dirt

It wasn't so difficult to see - she had seen
     the white skin and glazed over eyes
In online scenes and movie screens
     the pale grey stares of those who die

"I don't know how to feel atm," but she knew
     that she had done no wrong 
"It was ahmazing," for she knew that killing
     was not such a difficult thing

"As soon as you get over the ohmygawd I can't do
     this feeling, it's pretty enjoyable.
          I'm kinda nervous and shaky though
               right now."

And that night as she lay in her bed
     slept peacefully, the rhyme in her head
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," it said
     we all return to dust to join the dead

'Kay, I gotta go to church now...lol," 
     the prosecution read
but the sermon had nothing to be said
     for her or her neighbor,
             or for any who are dead

Only the living are subject to justice
     "If I could give my life to bring her back,
I would," said her three-year-older self
     but she lied
          for none return to earth
          of their own accord

-----

Here the truest parts of me

Read "here the frailest leaves of me" by Walt Whitman, if you want a bit of a background for this

---

They always said not to judge
a book by its cover and yet
I know that others see me
at first glance, for what
I appear to be

The words on the page are
meant to be spoken, not -
the page just stores
what is meant to be
later said

The ink-splotched notes
in this book, in books
The yellow-worn pages
that all books become
are photographs

The poems I reach for now
the words, grasping
the thoughts here
finite as I

if you forget me, then
remember the words
I said for they
betray me

---

The Lover's Remorse

----

Ah, Love lay low against the gallow's wood -
fall through, and be gone from these hands
well-worn, have borne this callous pain
upon the widowed restless street
Love billows up and blows away
gone, gone, but remnants stay
splintering heart that doesn't know
but in this moment, truth does show
away, away is best for me
best for grieving
best for peace

----

To Alexandra

did some small edits to it, but its mostly the same

-----
Oh, Alexandra, what brings you to the hotel window?
is it the nightwind that draws you in,
escaping breath that calls you to join it?
if it said your name would you accept it,
just close your eyes and choose to bear it?

Against those naked beaches and sandy shores
footsteps - pressing - against those gone before
I hear the crashing waves too, hear their roar
and you, your solemn glance, dreaming forth

What questions pressed against your chest - I wonder
what questions, what pressing inner thunder?
and behind teardrop eyes so fair
does the truth hide beneath your stare?

Muddled wine reveals so little that
Muddled minds can understand

But something within glittered more than that seashell shore,
more than your windswept hair, and the burden you bore
more than your lips divine or solemn gait
more than simple words can equate

Because beneath it all there is a truth,
that calls you to the hotel window
against the roaring ocean tide
that calls me to wonder, if I may
against the roaring ocean tide
that even as you look out
for beauty's sake
I too, look upon you
for beauty's sake

I wonder if you'd look on me
the way you look out on that sea
for that desperate longing
for something out there
the tragedy of existence
is the reason we care.

--------

Let us return

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let us return to the place where
the careful plans of man lay bare
the twisted trees are not so fair
beneath the crashing thunder's stare

let us return to the place deep
beneath the solemn willow's weep
and borne against the shadow keep
casting down the darkening steep

for rest finds itself in darkness
in keeping secrets, in closed eyes

for peace finds breath amidst chaos
in comparisons to passion

so let's return to dreaming states
where greatness so solemnly waits
upon the shore of parting straits
where waves question our broken fates


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