Acrobat

-

-

Acrobat

I have nowhere
to put my arms away
for the night and so I avoid
taking them off, which
only causes more problems.

Lying on my back is novel.
I could write a poem in my sleep,
for instance.

Sooner or later, however,
my spine takes on a limb of its own
and the inferior mattress is just too much
there.

I have considered a futon
of the roll-up variety in my Zen arcs.
Head on oblong block. Face open

to the closed eyes of night,
floating along in space
in tandem with the poem
that flies through the air
with the greatest of ease

and gets up and walks
on its hands
come morning.


April 2012

 

Art notes:

top: blue acrobat by Picasso

second: acrobat by Picasso

third: acrobat with flowers by Marc Chagall 

-

-

Poem: Doorstep of a dream (title change)

-

-

I danced but one waltz and fell into my chair by Mr. Tolstoy, where I listened to music and conversation much of the night. You were all so charming and bright, but I had awakened too early the night before and could not keep my eyelid shades up. In a few moments of drowse, a dream-poem found and sailed me back to the farm, where remnants of the sea floated and mingled in the strange dance of the mind. The room spun slowly down to stillness.

Doorstep of a dream

In a dream, a house is my self,
each room an aspect,

their windows a glaze of eyes,
as these poem lines

are my skin, the letters ears—
small shells

that hear the weeping
overflow of the apple tree,

which exhales tales of the sea
in waves, of its lost city,

fragged stones on a mythic beach,
which is anyway

and after all lozenged
here in the house of me.

On the doorstep of a dream,
or in the sand of this poem

leaves fallen on the ground
are my next hands

recasting what would otherwise
be blown, buried or

forgotten, into this day's
room, with a window, open.

Poetry should be heard.

-

-