song of the silent

i could write
poems of this
cool jazz nature
for days
at a time.
rhyme
would not be necessary
or even welcome
but dispelled
at the front gate
back into
the cold rain.
color
however would
stride through
the open door
and have a
glass of wine,
dark red
especially.
though i’d not
discriminate vs.
blue
for all its
watery misgivings
or yellow
because yellow smiles.
but black
with all its
bruises
and bats
and
things of that
dark nature
can take a hike
though they will
kindly avoid
the amazon,
where green learns
how to walk.

Reader, how many poems
begin at the base of a long staircase, gazing skyward,
and climb, line by onomatopoetic line,
en painstaking route to the light
at the tippy top,
where they stop to peer over the chestnut rail
and pat themselves on the back,
wide smiles illumining their paradoxical faces?

I knew without a doubt
after tripping this afternoon
on the third step (barefoot, tack)
that I would never produce
such a poem, that my art -
bejeweled, with red lipstick
and measured, high-heeled step -
would snake down
and down and down, past midnight,
to the cold basement of the earth.

Lurking there
might be Shakespeare, alive and bespectacled,
two rims of fatigue clouding his tragic eyes,
feather quill in hand,

or perhaps Frost,
one eyebrow raised, bereft of company,
save a candle flickering -

hell, maybe Donne is down there,
heeding the toll of some distant bell and
blowing out Frost’s candle.

But if I had to guess,
myself not having been,
there lounges a man we’ve never heard of
strumming a guitar, blue jeans askew,
eyes necessarily closed,

the tail of his black lab wagging
at the sound of verse incarnate
galumphing down the steps,
a puff of cigarette smoke foreshadowing
her long, unkempt black hair.

Take my suitcase, we’re goin out, out
to foreign lands, shapes of purple
and green with blue divide, a river
on the map. I hope you’ve got
your guitar somewhere in this mess,
cuz boy, there will be music, there will be dancin
where we’re goin, yeah we’re goin.
And I hear the spice’s not half-bad
where we’re headed, and not half-sad
to be headed.
Come, the hour’s now,
don’t bother with the lock,
come, let’s walk the walk.

I think I’m gonna write a song
this morning – the flowers
made me think so.
And the exit signs on the highway,
counting down to
thirty-one, twenty-five, eighteen
bottles of beer or
dreams of blue, eyes
watching for a sign,
lookin for some treble.
You haven’t seen her, have you?
She likes to hide between the bushes
on strawberry Sundays,
but I walked all the rows
and found just this – two empty pails and a
note: Your sax is out of tune,
signed, Roxanne,
with a flourish on the R.
Well, I hoped it’d be a good day,
the sort of day that pulls everyone outside, the
Sun a kind of tug-boat. Now
I see it, and I don’t,
the clouds dancing as they do.