Passing out business cards
Brazenly in a bar: Speed for Sale
his wrecked virtue impounded in dreams,
In tow yards, disguised and disgusted, distraught I watched
from an avenue running bloody
rivers through gutters
where lifetimes were spent
getting exhausted...
At the mouth of it an ocean of wonder remained -
He hated to get his toes wet
Those crinkly toes.
Fast enough that in retrospect
you feel like one gone man,
You stepped up and volunteered
To lighten my nightmare
I awoke to behold your eyes, "honestly"
tired of the lying.
You smile best in sleep
Smile, where the dimples glow
Smile, like you are alive
Apparently appreciative, even
Grateful perhaps open to
The ocean, though
soaked red by your life
In dreams you believe
in transcendence I swear it
In dreams we could once own the ocean
but tired as you always seem to be, still
devoted to devices twice the devotion you spent on me,
You perceive survival to be
More vital than life...
You illustrate an allegory
I grappled with in school,
And crouch and pounce and remain though ever moving
Somewhere that is nowhere
Which is more esteemed than anywhere
If you can make nobody who matters
Believe it is your choice
Picked a card out of the drawer yesterday
Still spun by my solitude
Lies to go Speed for sale
If I happen to be in Jail,
Call this number instead. to find you
I have exhausted both of you
Did my best, my very best.
My ocean of wonder was a wading pool
To eyes that did not believe what they professed
In lies that were never confessed, not even when pressed,
And geometries that defy and belie
All the goodness we could muster
If we even lived our dreams
Or slept off the rest of our lives.
© Barbara Bales 1997-2003 all rights reserved
Bales Law
Bumper Stickers and sundry law - diary entries - Poems - 5-7-99
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