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Two Broken Windows Intact
I’m sitting snugly in a plush two thousand
and three plastic chair. Three fingers for
one hundred and thirteen keys. To my right
giant panes of glass that are double thick
sleep coolly and jealous. Six are motionless
but two are shattered, designing their visions
as they choose. Showing everyone what they
are thinking. How they have decided to let
me see the oak or the green sidewalk or
the brown grass or the opaque figure of
a child holding a balloon in one hand
and his mother’s heart in the other, so
careless with both. He’s like the driver
who moved his cart into the building
claiming the full walls of glass as his
own. He didn’t know if he hit them just
right, he could give them life, where they would
stay up and let everyone see through them in the
prettiest way. Soon, without explanation
they will be replaced, with new transparent panes
just like mom. She won’t understand when he
leaves for school or falls in love. She longs to
hold him and tell him stories, just as the two
panes have done for you and me. If the child,
or the mother or the balloon could see me at this
moment, would they feel like we do? Would they
sing a lament for these poor and happy windows
and pray that the repair men would take an extra week?
Happiest Place on Earth
Have you ever paid to wait in line?
Paid to park, to pay to wait in line?
How about paid for food
After paying to wait in the restaurant?
Ever seen the look on a child’s face
When they step foot inside this façade for the first time
Where puffy bricks and screaming doorbells, clinch hearts
As tight as my grasp on your over-used hips
Thousands of them without cares
Warming our souls into a metallic glow
So our cold copper-plated core
Can give off warmth just for today
Just for tonight, you love me
You could be my Fiancé coming in from 3-days in Chicago
Or a high school sweetheart ran into at a bar
“Funny seeing you here, Façade. It’s me, Child,
Can I buy you a drink?”
Nineteen sixty-nine Gibson SG; white
Her skin has turned from pearl,
to a translucent tan smear of age and regret.
My lover for all of my days.
Waiting for me.
Why has her hard shell broken down with time?
Once so beautiful and shining
a metallic smile
radiating love
silently.
She always cherished playing,
and when she was young, she sang bright
louder than church bells
sweeping the countryside.
So soft and strong,
still singing the same songs
of youth,
but her tongue
has become the bridge
between her missing teeth.
Her missing years.
A rusted character and
hidden glow covered
with smudges of being used and neglected.
Her warn body screams
“why not love me like you did?”
Neck curved from tan to bruised black
since my hands squeezed so tight.
And when the fists release their clutch
from her slender neck for the last time,
she will never breathe again.
unstrung,
unplugged,
lifeless.
Carried in a beautifully
padded box to lie
above the ground.
In an attic, forgotten.
Until a garage sale
or when we move house.
to be thrown away once more.
Sunsets Reexamined
This twenty-third night of
Watching a firefly boogie. He has the net
And the jar and the high hopes. He has the tools
And the ability. He just can’t catch it.
He can’t hang on. And she will never
Know that she’s stretching his soul
For the chance, just a chance to
Get it. Always dancing in circles
Around his head, lighting up the night.
In a ballroom evening dress of gold
That coats and heaves at every man’s
Heart in the room, taking a piece from each
His hand twists the small neck hairs below the hairline.
Searching and reaching for the sound of capture
For the music and the gold and the body.
Now I know what your thinking,
But this is different. I can see him
Sitting at his desk, with a book in front.
This is key; this moment is imperative
What he doesn’t know is that he is brighter
Than the brightest fire fly, bringing her closer
The sun is attracted to his light and now
He caught it, and wrapped it up
And I watched him hold the sun.
In his arms while it bled to death.
She grew so pale next to him.
The world is so pale next to him.
Driving To Kinko’s To Bind My Final
Old sky, grey and close
tapping at my windshield.
It’s raining soft and windless like a pretend sick
day, where a “soar throat” would win
for 14 hours. I lay under the yellow
blanket grandma knit. Snug with the sound
of rain and warm with contentment and cherry
cough drops.
For an instant, it seems like the stereo and the wipers
and the rain are all drumming together.
Cha Cha Cha Clap
With my eyes closed, that old blanket reappears below my
chin.
In comes the smell of my first home.
From ten years of sitting on the back shelf of my mind.
Sweet and crisp.
Full of lavender and the window’s orange tree.
There is this place
between the buried and me,
that’s different for everyone.
When my ride comes,
I hope it’s raining out,
so I can breath this in again.
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