Dance of Death

June 10

DANCE OF DEATH

Honeyed words pour from painted lips; shades of doubt color my mind.  Stained glass eyes look to blank walls and picture the gallery of imagination, attempting to sell it for hard currency.  Sirens sing from the throats of mute men; the screams which rise in me fall on deaf ears.  Paradox feeds controversy but it needn’t.  Evolution from a cesspool is repugnant though progress is steadily made.  Inertia is violent if that is from whence it came.  Afterbirth is always bloody and humans not always nice.  I must live and heal as others climb up and slide down.  I must keep the beat and forget the dance of death.

Float your expectations and check for daggers underneath.

*

Dido

Either I can have a bad relationship that I never wanted

or no relationship and the painful isolation of having been lied to,

deceived by someone who, in theory, should have been trustworthy.

You are off to war and I am agape

not having realized until too late that you are a soldier.

The fact is that one of these things will occur;

you will be killed by a machine which cares nothing for you

and sees you as its enemy or destroyed by the organization

that sees you as its own.

Or you will throw yourself on your sword

and keep from bothering anyone else with this task.

There is no scenario where you are the One you promised me you’d be.

No homecoming, no welcoming arms to hold me.

I stand on the sidewalk,

a garbage pail of cold water poured over my shock and dismay.

To my grief you say that you have heard it all before,

so why did you set me up to say it all again?

I am heart stricken and cut in a place to obvious to hide

and too hidden to speak of.

You have no time to talk, no aid to give, no love to spare.

I thought I was yours, but see that I have been swept from your life

by the flood of a large gauge hose and water of questionable origin.

Everything is wet but nothing is clean.

This is an unholy act and I am defeated and living in Carthage