You are smoke
You wind your lies
Through the crowds
Til they are choking and gasping
Then you fade away and
blame the sick
that they are ill.
.
.
.
Just in case you’re tired of my Teachers’ Strike posts, here’s one that, while I know is about the strike and the misrepresentations of government spin doctors, at least it seems as if it could be about a variety of situations. 🙂
Some days
I can’t get close enough
to you.
I want to wrap
your skin around me
and hear our hearts
beat, blood bound,
against each other.
I was the lone
talentless one
in a room of musicians.
As each took his place,
at his instrument
I turned on the cassette
recorder, determined
to capture the moment.
I collapsed onto
the couch, in
blurry eyed reverie
as the music tangled
in my brain, filled the
basement, bounced
off the ceiling tiles.
The pianist glanced
into my starry eyes
and grinned.
The others teased
between their strings,
but words fell away
in the fog of my euphoria.
His lips curled upwards
on one side
as his eyes twinkled at mine.
When he packed to go
I rewound the tape.
I heard the
mangled mess of a
damaged tape.
Devastated, I
blinked through
tearful eyes.
Everyone laughed,
but he draped an
arm around my shoulders
and guided me up the stairs.
As his ride arrived
he whispered,
“Don’t worry.
I’ll make you
more music.”
And
he
did.
.
.
.
(Is it any wonder I wrote a book about this? lol Tonight, I had a flashback. Thought I’d share.)
I was a line
a squiggly line
a wiggly line
that grew
and grew
into a sphere:
a bubble floating
a tire rolling
I bent elliptically
under pressure,
curves contained
in shapely strain.
All evening
the hills have been
illuminated by a
laser light show,
and now
the skies are
streaming;
white mist
hides the hills,
enfolding us
as the heavens
flash and crash
above.
Your photo
sends me back thirty years.
In your place,
I see your old man:
his suspicious eye
pot belly
and bald head.
He was nearly eighty
and always angry.
You hardly look younger
with your belly and baldness,
and you’re wearing
his discontent
like an inherited suit.
It’s ageing you more
than your years are.
The dogs collapse
in hot heaps.
Summer’s simmering
settles into evening
breeze, but
the sun drops
ever earlier,
and autumn calls.
When you went away
full of dreams and plans
we waved your plane off
and wondered how reality
could possibly live up to
your unreasonable expectations.
We let you go to find your way
and when nothing is
what you thought it’d be
We have faith that
you will figure out
the reason,
and create reasonable
reality
for yourself.
Shawn L. Bird 