We earned our stripes that night
amid the polka dots and cigarette butts
and other signs of life
clamoring for attention.
Those stripes unfurl in
a smoky ambivalence
leaving tentative finger prints,
another reminder of something
illusory that the wind may dispel
just as easily as fire leaves
an ashy mark on anyone
bold enough to reach.
The rocks mark the ground
between prospering weeds enriched
by the warmth of a sun surging overhead,
encircling those of us interred
on a planet whose
percussive heartbeat rocks me to sleep.
I sense the presence of wildflowers,
of ants scurrying together in the dirt,
of life — too bountiful to count or name —
thriving in the darkness or
at least out of sight —
I dare not note a difference in perspective.
Photos remain after we pass on
a gentle breeze that thoughtlessly turns
blacks to sepia, discoloring too many memories
otherwise cruelly lost
in darkness
even though the sun shines tomorrow.
He chose life because he did
not consider the alternative
viable,
poor man.
He quivered
with the thought of the after –
overwhelmed – life,
a cosmic conviction
that on such scale
(weighing on him still) he is
insignificant but
remains a light in the void.
The broken ventriloquist parachuted
beyond the road, past even the living greens,
a wanderer in a straw hat
seeking life’s spark – that fire
that animates existence fully
and follows no formation.
Who paints the living? Who plants
the dead? In the end where do we go?
Asking questions with motionless lips,
he failed to hear the smoke
or any other meaning
and missing his traveling companion
returned to the road, lost after Genesis,
holding only clay.
The mouse crept beneath a window,
hushed footfalls ringing with regrets –
cheese (oddly placed) left untouched,
cats (strangely absent) go unseen,
cold mists (often intoxicating) left outside.
The moon acts traitor to the day,
exiling sun pillars to memories,
its cryptic desire for dark
in a world teeming with low-lying rodents
(best left unnoticed) puzzles the thoughtful.
We chose the sun (tickling our necks)
as we face another day living
in the audacious light where yesterdays
fade to
today fade
to regrets
fade
and we get another chance
another choice
between cheese or cats or cold mists
or creeping in the night
clamoring for the sun.
The day fades to amber.
A sailor scampers toward shore,
fearful of being lost on the billowy blanket
where warmth in wet ripples
soothes an otherwise fierce soul,
longing to be three
sails to the wind.
But pause, the sailor.
She called to him from behind,
crying calm waters whose
deep bold blue blended with the sky,
shades of blue amid specks of red
cascading beyond
his imagination.
Or maybe he merely wanted
to touch the sky
and turning upside-down,
adrift among the waves
and the clouds, stretched his sails
once again.
The night grows black.
