we hear what we we choose to hear
staccato of ponderous piccolo
amidst the woodwind flurry
or tense tympanic tantrum
to harmonize uneasy worry
.
we feel what we want to feel
clutch at a single stem
to let the thorns bury deep
why not instead the petals
velvet soft in palm to keep?
.
we dream what we want to dream
that even the barren meadow
basks full
so full of sunshine
i am content to be a scavenger
sparsely feathered, trembling
with a stench of carrion from window
ajar, yet chained
.
i linger, watchful
preening wings and
tentatively twisted talons
yet, with the filtered light of dawn
twist of neck….
shall I move on?
.
how i envy the entitled bird of prey
i know only shadow…
detritus
and decay
distort my shadow with play of prism
elongate and fenestrate the light in godly prison
subjugate such spectrum with uncanny precision
.
i watch as you deftly twist the beam
with sleight of hand, perverse
and palm unseen
when fingertips are pungent,
this air is kerosene
.
you want me fire
intensify
to heated point,
but I am rainbow
lavish
set to page anoint
my skin
won’t break
though tainted from scratch
and taunted by branding iron
tremulously inked with tattoo tint
dehydrated, despite monsoon
singed when sun fires through ozone
it shall be a resilient dermal shield
when unsuspecting hearts yield
to the treachery of time
..
there will always be skin
pulled tight over bone
bending
presumed to be a smile
unending
grimacing curve of lip tension
errant betrayal of intention
when puckered with piloerection
wrapping, sealing
neuropathic unfeeling
your skin
where once I was a field of wildflowers
shaded cool near open plain
caressed by breath of winsome breeze
cooled by kiss of springtime rain
.
summer saw me serried and root bound
in servitude of crumbled ground
oh that you, young traveller
should find me, found
.
patiently in seraphic state
a scintilla of self, I did but wait
with drifting seeds
and scion stretch
yet autumn wasted
to weed…such wretch
.
for the dark, duplicitous skies
disturbed the dance of butterflies
and lured away, through savannah grass
far from my field
you then did pass
i wander through the rooms
of you, protean partitions
a fawning pass through
shadow facing, self effacing
.
find me
in a cloistered sanctum
an airless antechamber
of faded light fenestrations
spawning Lescaux like illustrations
ancient projection and flickering scenes
reality yielded, yet gossamer dreams
..
you offer me such squalid abode
a somnolent subterranean cell
lulls shallow breath, long slowed
as hypoxia calms the Elysian dark
halycon opiate memories spark
… with hermitic spores
..
something scurries in the sooty stillness
scabious rodent claws at my cheek
“how did you get here” i whisper
“another fanciful figment, so meek”
“why do you stay” say i
“i cannot reach the unlatched door”
indolent, i close my eyes
with claws at neck
i wait some more
i was a bird
i tried to launch from a balcony
but you saw the calamitous skies
rendered opaque in my eyes
and grabbed my gnarly wings
feathers fell: funereal offerings
.
when I was a python
i had a serpentine aspiration
to contort and twist into suffocation
but you distracted me with quail eggs,
juggled by a roguish marmoset
cajoled by such tomfoolery, I forget
.
then I was a leopard
i slipped away into the night
camouflaged in shadows
to a covert carnage site
later, to discover in defiant disarray
pierced through by arrow of curare
at last …. my own lifeless prey
