August 30, 2012

poem 293 of a poem a day for 2012



you taped my hands with magnets to record in the memory of iron

seven balls of string
color spun to ring
coil along my arm
they’re waiting
for the light to change
there is an echo
fire Autumn in our voices
we are, heavy in the mead
rising and falling
in a drunken revelry
of passing baton
between rolling conversation
and the underneath it all
thievery of our eyes

lust is always in
crisping to cool air
with flicker magic
performing, a shadow lattice
putting near ice
on the gourd
where the intersects
are these moments
are the chances we’ve taken
turning the wheel, ourselves

we run our mouths
like Prometheus
spilling our soul
of time because
the ritual of the cup
harvests everything
until silence
pauses and spawns
itself in the sway
loop laughter chain
that is what gathering
with stolen elements
can do for us
though we never
say this out loud
until we are
around a fire and
the smell of deciduous death
is everywhere
in a portal circle
where everything you say
becomes important to you
to the point
of pausing
with emphasis
like we’re presenting
or performing a poem

we sing a tune
every twenty syllables or so
then our pitch changes
we press the pedal
of intonation for believability
while we question ourselves
before every word, because
when all else fails
and we feel the empty
of words, coming on
we know we will sing
with all the fine cloth
layering of emotion we can
something we think we know

we will be singing
to stop carrying our fire in words
where every moment carves us still
so we say tag out
with some chorused
fuck it phrase and soft shoe
song and dance
that we’re good at
singing between the lines
a song of I’m too drunk
to converse
that says
I’m just going
to laugh instead
as I think I just
pissed my pants
a song that says
fuck it, the crickets called a cab
they wrote down
the rest of the words
and they can auto-tune
my voice and animate
my desires and
you can watch
whenever and
as often, as you want
just please be kind
and rewind me
to remember 
my name

EJR ©

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