Illusionist

You can pull me out of a hat,
hide me up your sleeve,
saw me in half as the audience gasps,
or turn me into a bouquet of flowers
clamped between the teeth of the Bengal tiger
you've just created with a tap of your wand.

You can levitate me into the darkness
of the rafters and make me vanish
in a cone of smoke before their astonished eyes
and then bring me back with a shake of your cloak
and sink knives into the spinning cork board
you've lashed me to while parents look on
in horror and cover their children's innocent eyes.

But after the show, remember,
I will grab your hand in mine,
and we'll disappear into the night
like one of your magic tricks
and that this will be no illusion.

The Old Men

As the old men gather
in groups against the wall,
a gaggle of thin men honking
hoarse horns,
bleating yesterday's escapades
into a mash of mendacity,
the room rattles with words
stitched into a cacophonous
haze of lies that cannot hide
their weary, jealous eyes
twitching toward the young men
who stand aside, waiting
for their turn in the circle.

A Canticle On Crap

Crap! When you don't give a crap
about crap, you just don't give a crap,
which isn't crappy because
giving a crap makes you feel crappy,
and that's a bunch of crap,
so walk away when crap happens
and let someone else clean it up,
if they give a crap, which most don't,
but remember that ignoring crap stinks
and might be the cause of all the crap,
and that's really pretty crappy.

Reflections

It is autumn outside the thin skin
of glass I stare through to see
a single leaf drift down
from its mother tree, leaving
her bony skeleton shivering
inside a frigid breeze
while her thin, barked arms
stretch heavenward in sorrow.

She will die now for a time, bough-bent,
naked against winter's wrath
until spring brings life to her limbs.

And within my cocoon,
I consider my streaked reflection
in the pane, wondering when
autumn will find me, waiting
for that quiet tap on the glass
that says, "I know you're in there."

Negative Space

Silence sits on my lips like a snake,
slithering its slippery tongue out
through a scaly slot to sense
that single second when the strike
cannot miss its mark.
Coiled, my silence teasing
uncertainty into your words,
I wait
for that perfect pause
to fill
with the fruit of my fangs.

Desteindre

Because I have been tattooed
from the beginning,
you can wash your hands of me,
but the stain on my heart remains.
I have tried to scrub it clean,
yet your ink has written
an indelible story into my skin.

It will not fade.

The detergent of time
only makes your lines more distinct
against a bleached background,
and laser treatments are worthless.
They cannot erase my memories.

I have no choice.

Come back and finish
what you began.
Come fill in the shadows
of my future.

I squished a fly!

I squished a fly
and watched it die
so now it doesn't
try to fly.
I hope that I
try to fly
up until
the day I die.