A Solitary Affair
03/01 2023
The stars they look at us patiently and shiver
As we stare back arrogantly at our cosmic giver.
And the streetlights they flicker, and woe,
Our master in transit, transmitting too low
For their nocturnal faces to pick up on.
Winter moon tell me of your secrets wrapped up in silver,
Which priests give out freely but blame on pastoral singers.
Her tibetan handkerchief in the wind so easily explained,
Yet the poet confuses it for himself who currently reigns
The land of tropical rains and perpetual dawn.
In abandoned subway trains scattered in rows
Of crumbling wooden benches, old ladies in modern clothes
Reminisce of their dead dogs. The poet sees all,
But the only thing which interests him is his fall
Down to the hall of Orion, where his child is free to yawn.
A tailor makes the man who stumbles around,
Searching for his left hand while his right is bound.
Surround him by love and darkness shall he find,
Not that there's anybody around to pay him any mind.
Nature as his oppressor, his body a debt to solicit others upon.
It begins to rain and people hurry about their day,
Moments most would consider gray, but they
See God everyday and mistake salvation for an umbrella,
And every meal shared among friends as a precursor to salmonella.
The rain glitters, and is lost in the gutter; oh, float on.
Be careful, the peddler says, not to envy such days:
"Mysterious skies for dark travelers", to turn a phrase
Small scraps of paper line the weary road
That together would carry the load, but mean little alone.
Hear their praises from the salesmen passing on.
As if life's poetry was a solitary affair:
Hear it in the memory of a dream's sweet tasting air,
Or in paradise lost to winter's perennial demands,
Or the blue-eyed muse in the corner who says she understands;
The inner realm but a shadowy reflection of silver, withdrawn.