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

"Cash, Grass or ***-No One Rides Free!"*
reads the bumper-sticker slapped on the ratty Harley.
Its black leather seat is cracked, tattered and torn,
the headlight is busted and there's no friggin' horn;
with mismatched saddlebags strapped to each side,
the panhead leaks like a sieve, but it's still quite a ride.

The gas-tank is dented, scratched and coated with muck,
the chrome no longer shines, but who gives a flyin' ****?
Its tires are bald, the spokes are all rusted to ****,
and the frame is off-kilter from a cage-driver'*****.

The biker just puffed the last hit from his pipe,
slammed down the rest of the J.D. from the bash last night;
then he hops on his hog, kicks the monster to start,
the muffler-pipes blast flames and roar like a ****.

Together they roll down the road like old pals,'
with nowhere to go, just obnoxious and loud:
the tombstone tail-light flashes bright red on this mess,
'though Cashless, Grassless and Assless, they couldn't care less!

falling with you to catch me,
i am Icarus.

wings of wax.

the man in the air of your dreams...

i can no longer understand how now,
this sleeplessness at night,
when the world is waking in other places
so far away from me,
to the ethereal powders of the breeze,
that paints the morning with its poetry,
as the phantom of the love i love,
causes me to awaken with a cry.

It's going to rain, rain, it's going to rain,
those sleek-silver drops will take me back again,
to those cobbled, winding streets,
the raucous, song-filled pubs,
and the green, the green, the red-brick,
granite and oh! the green,
the steaming Earl Grey tea,
of which i love with a yearning need,
waiting, waiting for me,
on that precious island on the sea.

I

i am so much smaller than you
and i can ever
                            believe...
and you are so much smaller
than you and
i know.

i sit within the winds,
those summer breezes,
some gusty gales, perhaps,
feeling
'the tug
               and toss
of its fabulous force
     rippling
     churning
combing the thinning grey hair on my tired head,
my clothing,
                          so indistinct,
flapping,
                  furling,
floating, --filled with this seen-un-seen presence,
     and i know

a am so small,
and my life so
ludicrous,
like the air
that comes
                      and goes
out of its own control,
but,
                                               i am too small,
and unable
to stop this, its invisible assault.

II


when i am a-float upon
the great lakes, the oceans
the
      rolling
                    rivers
i live
like a tiny slab of flotsam or
     driftwood
sailing
             slowly,
circularly,
(oh-so!) quietly
                                running,
reeling the peeling painted oars of my boat
against
the grainy flashing surface of the waters
                                 rumbling,
                                                                                  rolling
                                                                                       away
this insatiable yearning
to go wherever it takes me to go, but
i know
              i am very small,
and cannot control the eddy's creeping currents-
constant-currents
thus
          submitting
my wayfaring self
to the
unfathomable.

III
__

these trees towering
                                         above me
around me,
the sapling,
the blanketing
                              (in my lifetime)
                                blooming branches
creating
an emotional, outer, physical, inner, spiritual
                              dwindling
like the leaves left shivering beneath the cold winter's frost,
once casually
                falling,
                              dropping,
drying up around my soul
slipping
into silent winter slumber,
to awaken
                     again...
                                    --and then!
(to the dismay of my self-enlightened discovery)
i see
how small
                                            i am
only to return again
from that brownish-moist
soil-bed
                like a seed
beneath
                  the ground
                                        never sprouting,
only fogetting,
the once and always forvever
and ever
the natural
insignificance
                                                                 of being.

Coffee and Tea, I'll take them both,
Light me up another smoke,
Have a piece of Shoo-Fly pie,
Hear the birdies in the sky,
Take my pen in trembling hand,
Compose some poetry, if I can.

I am,
however, no hero,
just a lowly poet
in the always
and forever
quest for the pursuit of
truth...

On the streets of heat and movement
lie the evidence of pain,
she walks, he talks, the children run
throughout the burning rain.

I can smell the smoke of lifelessness
along the living death,
we talk, they walk, the sirens wail
today may rob our breath.

In the rooms of waste and apathy,
sit silent the insane,
she writes, he writes, the samll hand ticks
the hours fast away...

Dance the moon
I fell too soon
You picked me up
Yes, you picked me up

You gave me shelter
When life was a helter skelter
And baby, oh baby, I wish you knew
How much that I love you

Dance the moon
I fell too soon
You picked me up
Yes, you picked me up

I wish I could be there
To stroke your long red hair
You are so far away
I wish you could kiss my tears, today

Now I have danced the moon
And when I fell too soon
You picked me up
Yes, you picked me up

Run with me, my one love
Help me to soar high above
Kiss me within a heart beat
You make me be complete

Dance the moon
I will be with you soon
You pick me up
Yes, you pick me up



copyright Chris Smith February 1st 2010

is sick
and to die...
all i can do
is sit here and
cry...