Static crackling ecstatically; manic pop
Transistor hissing and spitting; sideboard atop
First when there’s nothing…
But a slow glowing dream…
Pirouette such as whirling dervish makes
Adolescent prancer twirls; leg warmer fakes
All alone I have cried…
Silent tears full of pride…
Breathless incantation; future forged in dance
Performance fascination; leap upon the chance
What a feeling...
Bein’s believing…
Neon flashes bedeck wrists and bonce
Peers laughter flash like fire; a ponce
Take your passion…
And make it happen…
The music shields, deflects. Antacid; taunts abate
Rhyhmic dreamer energized; blind to all the hate
Pictures come alive…
You can dance right through your life…
As Bergen-Belsen ghost yet still aware
Lost dreamer segues silently on fetid air
Bruised and battered, I couldn’t tell what I felt…
I am unrecognizable to myself…
Shuffling as garish Geisha; white but not with paint
Breathless as fifties bombshell; heaving sick and feint
At night I could hear the blood in my veins…
It was black and whispering as the rain…
With steel partner; straight firm and slim of hip
Rigid in rigor’d waltz; moving labouredly with drip
I walked the avenue, ‘til my legs felt like stone…
I heard the voices of friends, vanished and gone…
Faithless rusting engine combusts toxic blood
Failing sack of sinew lies where dancer stood
Night has fallen, I’m lyin’ awake…
I can feel myself fading away…
Monotone white noise; assuring beep
Dancer dreams in endless sleep
There was a time when men were kind…
There was a time when love was blind…
©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness – 2018 – All rights reserved)
Acknowledgements:
1. Flashdance… what a Feeling (1983 – Giorgio Moroder, Keith Forsey & Irene Cara)
2. The Streets of Philadelphia (1993 – Bruce Springsteen)
3. I Dreamed a Dream (Les Miserables – Claude Michel Schonberg, Herbert Kretzmer & Alain Boubil)
The difference 40 years can make in a gay dancers life....from dream to nightmare in the ***/AIDS crisis, inspired by the music and news of the 80's and 90's
