urbansonnets

Set piece: Red air, pinkish sink, rose aura,
and she walks in and the curtains quiver
from a fan that we can't see, but Dora
takes a moment to chill, and you shiver:
She's stunning, eh? A real nymph on the screen,
and she reaches for a cup from the pool
that cuts before us, with waters pristine,
and our Dora stands in the golden cool:
Of sunbands lilting down to lift the waves
from a staid grace to an airy coolness,
Dora takes counsel, as she dips and saves
each clear memory, to our dreams clueless:
These are the breaks, whether Sun, Moon or Free–
they leave us to Luck; we must learn to be.

The pinwheel spins, spins, reels and haunts my dreams /
They're coming out of the huddle, my team /
"Pinwheel," I hear in a voice that's like screams
from a realm unreal to the touch like steam:
It's dark in here, and I can't feel without
my sense of calm, my sense of timeliness,
so I stand in the pile–palms sweat out doubt–
as I wait for the call, and I'm hapless:
And up they swooshed, breaking through the huddle;
with grimaces and guns they shot us down;
The wind wheezed as I turned to a rubble
of a man, as the pinwheel spun around:
"Pinwheel," I hear in a gentle child's voice;
It's second down? We'll punt: we have no choice.

My scarf is so cheap, but it gets respect,
since people only deal with appearance;
I am guilty too, and these words reflect
my belief that my scarf was on clearance:
At Shades Plus in Providence, Rhode Island,
where every trifle feels so damn timeless:
"This land is your land / This land is my land"
is the song that they sing when they undress:
In PVD, I mean, in some milieux
there, since it's all about living freely.
But I ain't learn the folk, I learned the blues,
and Montreal's so cold that it's peely:
If you catch my drift, and catch my dryness, 
then this scarf is cheap despite its flyness.

I haven't really taken time to think,
but the truth flashes before me like lights
that are blinking when the streets are a sink,
holding the used glassware of unwashed nights:
You pull the plug to drain the water out,
but there's a kernel of corn in the drain,
which means it all flows down–there is no doubt–
but this flooded corn represents your brain:
Are you on drugs or loaded? Rich or high?
Righteous or rictus? Is this grain for food?
Or is it for swollness? The sink the sky?
What is birdseed if not the highest good?
So many questions to answer…I fall
asleep, while standing firm, while standing tall.

If you see a cloud of dirt splash up from
the earth, please know that a fresh breeze passed through,
with a humid air and a gentle drum,
wafting fresh vigor over plants anew:
Please know that this wind is my hasty verse,
steeped in the dewy essence of chaos,
but as its direction and force traverse
the wastelands of past stagnation and loss,
Please know a special thing seems to occur,
and the seeds of life began to repeal
the miscreant deeds of decades before,
and beneath the raised sands bruised fruits repeel:
Please know that this fruit is this simple song;
I hope it sounds nice as you sing along.

I resolve to learn French–that way I can
communicate with most of the people
in these Americas, from Belmopán
to Belmont, MA, from root to steeple:
I'm of the earth and of man, and I want
to reflect this with a wide-eyed vision,
with a four-forked tongue, here sharp and there blunt,
and a clear conception of my mission:
Ours is a creole culture, a gumbo
or perhaps a poutine or some ox tails,
or, better yet, maybe it's mofongo…
Whatever: digestion is where hate fails:
And me? I'll learn to chef for all palates,
from cap-à-pie, from conch shells to shallots.

I had a dream that this vision would last,
and I'll do anything to realize it
within these watchful hours, which past
will be wakes in the course of my eyesight:
The lights were still shining, and the wind was
peeling off my skin into snowflakes stirred
into the unguent of my deeds, which does
truly mean that I worked here undeterred:
Vision of the future is Providence,
maybe of the city, but what I mean
here is the opposite of Fortune's fence,
wherein all is given 'gainst the Wheel Queen:
I see the top of the world in my wake–
all the continents (sizzling, gleaming) quake!

Feet not quite suspended, my mind is free
of all evil, except that which wraps round
it, in the air, in swarms, from which I flee–
the social feelings of a mind unsound:
I flow like a dream current, stream current,
rippling around the firmaments as time
measured from rock to rock, and the torrent
is me, is you, is ice, flow, rock and rhyme:
When will the warmth come? Where did you go to?
These are questions I ask myself to sleep,
from the golden lights to the frozen dew,
since the strongest ram is also a sheep:
I wear my shiny fleece close to the heart–
since we play with the truth, I play my part.

To say that vision is fleeting is to
miss the point, to swipe the deck with your tongue,
to hear the sounds of a dead man come to,
to predict newness in songs well past sung:
This isn't a critique– it's confession;
I bear my soul just like anyone else–
we talk in twoness / communication
where the forked tongue flatters, flutters and swells:
Learning to be what you should need to be
is a disillusionment we all need,
and I'll be there after to pacify
the sounds of life turned shards and and promptly hid:
Under beds, where dust and dander conflate
and my two sore eyes turn hands and turn feet.