With a single
glance
you make me sweat--
your sticky breath
dances
melodically with every swagger
of your step.

You chronically
dehydrate  
my thoughts--
ironically inspiring me
to bathe in refreshing
conscience streams
that are not mine.

I want to taste
the salty Sahara sands
between your toes
to feel what it's like this close
to the sun--
concealed by the  burning
Shisha smoke you breathe
with such control into your soul.

For one steamy night
I want to be the wind
igniting--brightening--heightening
those burning embers in your eyes
watching you slither,
as if an ice cube touched your spine.

I want white light smiles
to scar our faces
the next morning,
disfiguring our charred
hearts--
our ashes scattered
by the wind from the burning
building we've collapsed.

Hurriedly--
everyone on the streets
rush indoors.
Road signs rattle,
loose leaves on trees rustle--
some blow away...
     the sky
     darkens
    and stops...

Cars rush home,
dogs start whimpering,
the air is thick.
    the sky
   darkens
  and stops...

Here I am,
a barefoot stroll
on the warm sidewalk--
my hair twisting and tangled in the breeze
my whole body charging electrically
as the wind walks beside me.

I can't wait 'till I get to the park
near my apartment,
to feel the wet rain-riddled grass
beneath my feet,
tickling
healing...
feeling like myself again.

The wanderer follows
No hallowed path
Set forth for her
By the sagacious few.
Nor does she live
To build her past
For far off futures
Whose seeds are sewn.

No familiar face
Has she ever seen
That greets her where
She decides to sleep
But travels with
The wind in her hair:
The only companion
She chooses to keep.

All empires return
To dust that birthed
Them from the nothingness
Of barren ground,
And push the ambitious
To build them tall
For fleeting futures
On foundations unsound.

Such men still laugh
At one like her
Who possesses nothing
In their eyes,
And lives in chaos
Of shifting destiny
With no respect
For human lies.

But no future goal
Controls her fate
Nor worldly tethers
Bind her past
So she is free
To contemplate
Her relation to
The earth so vast.


She is the dust
from God’s fingers
that’s fallen on
Ungrateful land
And shows the blind
And sinful people
Their origin from
The present at hand.

They deride and mock
Or at best ignore her
And value what God
Did not confer
But she is more
than the earth and sky
And none can take
What belongs to her.

I look at your eyes
& can't help but gaze through
directly into your brain...

the silence speaks,                
                          our        thoughts
release            {{{{undulating}}}}        colors
      glowing through        our eyes
to          effervescently               coalesce
all over
               your subconscious
               ( (v i b r a t i n g) )
throughout           your          body
until we breathe
                azurite         dreams  
           from the incandescent heartbeat
                          of the      [plaid]       bliss
                  we have enveloped ourselves with....

Sometimes,
When the sun goes down,
But does not take with it the weight of daily life,
I find my eyes looking up
To the lights that share their wisdom with my troubled mind.

Most days,
My mind finds times when it acquiesces to the struggle
Of the pressures that the world thrusts upon it,
But still it finds refuge in the stars
That shelter from the ever-shifting flow
Of the illusions that press on me to change.

Every night
When my eyes travel the infinity above my head,
I am freed from careless thoughts that drift aimlessly in my mind:
The openness of space greets me with its silent embrace.

Send me adrift around the stars,
Past the endless nebulas, planets and their suns!
Orbit me around the galaxies that stand indifferent to our human time:
A blink of an eye that's quickly forgotten in the infinite.
Up there I find myself as the calm that permeates the emptiness
As I feel all those careless boundaries peel away...

her voice, in imagination,
is a moonlight sonata
to which I listen
when I'm alone, eyes closed;
covetous heart unwilling to share
painful beauty of the adagio,
explaining pain only angels know;

then, effortless transformation into
playful allegretto, delicate hands
already caressing bruised soul,
nestles fingers into mine;
we stroll, entwined as lovers will,
along lonely paths together,
each holding up the other,

building to passion of presto;
pace quickened, chastened steps
abandoned as flesh echoes
electric crescendos of bliss,
all that's real ceasing to exist
save sweet sweat,
fragrant breath of the other;
then I listen again,
to impossible moonlight,
and imagine.

land’s become copper and rust
but for a few golden strands
of heavy-headed grass
spears tall, yet avoided harvest

appetites of roving deer
will soon consume them, too,
overcoming fears, that gray-band
of asphalt they dance against

they stand silent, await frost
certain to repaint the place
as cotton clouds, my breath,
remind the lie of endless life
clutched fast in cold-numbed limbs

this web of brittle bones,
like the huddled trees outstretched,
is tossed in bitter winds
and in there I lost your face

the body stooped and shuffled away
with never a backward glance
taking our childhoods with you,
old man

I spy,
the morning mist, outside
the window that is not mine,
rising from the river,
sunshine tries to sneak through a sliver,
I, with thoughts only
here and now
for thee,
you
my new and gentle mystery,
who came to me on a silver stream,
made subject for my pen,
my dreams,
and this misty morning,
where I wish to be,
across from you
smiling back at me.

Is this not what it's all about?
Waiting in the wings,
stretching, turning, churning,
anxious and adrenal,
living for the dream,
wishing for the dream,
being
the dream,
dancing on beams,
beneath the streams
of lights and fans,
arrayed like a bird
in tulle, crinoline, silk, satin and linen
white plumage,
acting only on command,
the music soft and flowing
their frail, slender figures
take to air,
arms and legs,
torsos tender,
slender necks,
wisps of downy hair,
melding colours,
sights and sounds,
the stage a pedestal of fate,
their beauty
captured
in gilded cages
for all to watch and see,
recaptured yet again,
by the artist on the easel'd window
of his canvas,
a maestro of sorts,
tapping his baton-brush,
coating the blankness with sweet
inspiration,
like angels heavenly
brought to earth,
serenaded by strings,
life from the blankness begins,
covers the void,
bejewels the mind's eye
and beckons the ballet
rehearsal to begin,
yet shall in oil paint now
and for all time
never cease to be...

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."
Edgar Degas

____
Inspired by the painting by Impressionist artist Edgar Degas,
The Rehearsal.
--to view the painting:
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/degas/ballet/degas.rehearsal.jpg

When the first sweet scent of summertime,
sifted through the sea-salt scented air,
so many things and everything
were bright, light and happy-go-fair,
the Summer Life with you was finally here.

As soon as our bare feet hit the wood bridge,
running from the road up over the dunes,
great grey seagulls squawked, dove and swoon,
we held hands together, one and one
made two,
dash-dancing across the shiny sand with you,
dressed and undressed in our Summer Life moods.

Colours like pinwheels spun like yarn,
flashed and clashed bright orange to blue,
you danced and giggled like a loon,
pulled me up and so close, so close
to you,
that I had to dance, I had to dance like a loon,
I just had to laugh and dance and laugh along with you.

How we played, we frolicked beneath the beachy sun,
belly-surfed upon the waves just for funny fun,
flicked flecks of sand from our sticky picnic lunch,
shared swigs from a big blue thermos jug
of fruity-fruit yummy punch,
sharing and caring beneath the Summer Life's sun.

By evening-tide the air grew cool,
you called me 'lover,' I called you 'fool'
-with a big ol' blanket draped over our shoulders,
we kissed and cuddled, growing much bolder,
falling flat back
upon the mighty mattress of sand,
feeling the mists of the waves licking our hands,
as the Man-In-The-Moon arose and shone,
to dance and laugh with us on the Summer Life's throne.

without you is a lonely shore,
a stretch of sand, a closing door,
where wisps the winds from off the waves,
such mockery of my heart they make.

no matter what the time of day,
i think, i dream of you this way:
hand in hand, at last as one,
sharing laughter, love and fun.