Once I held all
the balloon strings
of a few colours,
some shifted, popped
with the wind.
others burst with a shower
of gold
others swirled with translucent
smoke.
but a monstrous gale came,
snagging its claws into my palm
cutting my knuckles with hail
painting my cuticles with frost
and I cried out, bleeding in
the cold and crying,
stepped out of the ring
let loose all the tails
and  so ended
that particular
song.

I don't come here often anymore.
I can't.

I  have grown to loathe the walls.
And the paper has faded,
just like the boards-
scratched, ugly
with flourescent
and no longer soft in
twilight.

I used to love
this place inside.
the notebook cubby of
creativity.
where my pen made
me beautiful.
An ego stretched and bared like
a bathing goddess.

But now I have lost my tongue
unable to translate fabric to
dress
and show my life, standing upright,
in verse.

Lyric hubris.
the Muse taketh away

Poet's curse.

I'm at the
last train station on
the line.

the trains here,
they turn around and
go back
no matter which
track you pick
they're both going
the same direction

I wonder if
I pick the left
train,
whether my ride will be
smoother.

are the seats softer
on the right?

if they go the
same direction,
is it the same
destination?

Parallel
to  converge later
and unite?

perhaps the
one time...

in Time...

that which
fork you take
really doesn't
matter at
all.

so instead of
being a dead end,
maybe it could be
construed as

a Miracle.

Open
Then, shut.

vital *****...
closed for
repairs until

further notice

there's this place
on my arm that goes
"swish"
It's the bit without
nerves where
the metal lies.

if I was bionic
and my heart
were made of steel
I'd be indestructable

but
then I
wouldn't be able
to  feel.

balance
on the line
one foot
step careful
you break
your mother's
back and who
can have that
on their head

walk
forward towards
your toes
follow through
feel your hips
align to
move you

line up
your spine
catch yourself
like a cat

and take
all the arrows
in your shoulder
because everyone
knows that a
proper archer
will
aim to
miss your heart.

as  I walked in white
in the gilded summer night

foot steps following
one heel, one heel
down the street
downtrodden
floating
detached
lost

a call came from
a wind maker on the street
a stirrer of emotions
a sorcerer whose only game
was that of creation

I watched the draw and pull
of the strangers into his
gravitational field

tendrils of invisible allure
wrapping around shoulders
ankles of passersby
as they froze
captivated by his moth-and-spider web
of alien, archaic sound.

in the aftermath
of my escape
from his forcefield

I sat on a bench
carefully attempting
to tuck the edges of my
being back
inside my body

so to join
the rest of the anonymous
collective fleeing
from  the ancient
difficult feelings
he had stirred
from the greater
universal melting ***

no longer recognized
in this
Cold Age of Chrome and LCD screens.