Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Tight Rope Walker; draft #2

I stand on a tight rope
toes tight against the coiled threads.
My eyes look forward but my mind sees 360 degrees:
Is the wire swaying? Am I more than halfway?

The crowd is silent. Should I achieve unscathed the distant edge
they'll applaud but for the most part they await
some say court my disaster
that I should fall and with no safety net:
for this walk too I was dared to perform by passersby
too afraid to walk the straight line herself
all while gleeful and participant in the glitz
the glimmer of this media driven spectacle.

A yawn from the nosebleed settles upon silence
my soft feet lift glide inches at a time
eyes glued to the goal despite the catcalls:
I am a juggler
all at once dealing with seven tossed balls of circus glory.

The platform now looms near
my mind turns to the philosophy of distance,
how it changes moment to moment
relative to the pace of the swish between my legs.
Mind and eye become one
and baptists in the audience think I look like Jesus walking on air.

My right foot clears the cedar wood's platform edge:
I first hear a solitary clap and then a cacophony of applause
the rhythm to which I declare my living pulse.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Opossum Belly; draft #3, finished poem more or less

Dead fur dries over and over peels skin
slowly lifting from muscle tissue:
somewhat of death an end to heartbeats love nerve twitch
severing iron from blood the life-giver oxygen reactor,
somewhat the passage of windy airs
somewhat also the rapidity of flies dropping egg bombs
their young pouring forth from fleshy orifices:
muscle becomes meal.

An opossum's belly turns and writhes under the hot summer sun
and it turns also my stomach
thankful I am empty of food late for dinner.
Gas expands turning animal into organic and bone toothed cavity,
byproduct of microorganism-evolutionary vagary:
the small rule the fate of the large
that feed and fuel and wait and crave
demanding more from passerby's lest they sit unsuspecting
and then too bare the rancid meat fruit of fly speck goners
puking red meal acidic entrails out onto the pathways of life.