Crossings

Narrow, yet
Open,
Exposing itself to
The abandon
Of a vast sun,
My heart extended
Out of its solitude
To the vibrating
Dangerous edge
Between two bodies,
Wants a song,
A response,
A rejection, a
Flawed acceptance.
The ache is in
This crossing
Over,
This leap from the
Tongue,
And the impossibility of
Returning
To familiar skin,
The alien me
In a stranger’s bed,
The way everything has
Changed.

The Music Stopped

The sky fell.
We danced.
The trains derailed.
We danced.
The ocean liners vanished
And the wounded sea
Never returned to port.
We danced.
We danced.
The desperadoes breached the walls.
The squares echoed with the
Savage boots of night.
The bodies smiled
From the lampposts.
And the city,
Giddy, buxom, pretty,
Hopped into bed with the sadist,
And drunk his wine,
And tweaked his beard.
We danced.
We danced
Through the flag-strangled streets,
And the flung open gates
To the terrible camps.
We danced
With blackened soles.
With shards in our heels,
We danced
And never stopped believing
In God, in dreams,
In music.

Time Gets Drunk

Time whispers get me drunk.
The hours are like rooms,
I circle endlessly,
And the doors open only once,
And go nowhere.
Get me drunk, cries time,
Toss all the clocks in the woodshed,
Cuff all the outlawed watches’ hands,
Take the grandfather clock off life-support.
Sighs time,
I want dawns without sunrises,
Afternoons without teatime.
I want chaotic birdsong
To keep us awake at night,
The morning newspapers to never arrive,
The trains to wait in the station
Indefinitely.
I want confused crowds milling
In every city,
Waiting for the doors to open,
The elevators to rise,
The truant day to let them in,
Waiting until boredom dies,
Until the parks, at last, have filled with lovers.
Drunk time slurs the hours
The minutes
The beginnings and the ends.
With each bottle,
The knots in the universe unravel.