Empire At Close Quarters

I’ve such exciting news to tell you now, in case we never meet.

All the cultural forces that keep iron bars cold and unbending

have broken open. Around the city you and I looked for each

other through closed windows where paranoia’s brown winds

rough the glass and smooth the dimensions of our old buildings.

We who walk to the ends of lanes and whistle, who achieved

nothing but lashes across hands, insults to the sanctity of skin,

dedicate these songs to unknown persons who resist hearing.

Come morning there’ll be no crackdown, no eyes within the sun.

A story centered on the idea we return from where we started

means what exactly for what’s happened here and in between?

You no longer need be afraid of the small warmth given by a kiss.

Do not ignite last night’s dreams with stealthy fire. Listen to me,

we can tease these unexpected feelings, together, out of reach

of the shadow’s prison and into the physical alchemy of daylight:

its length immeasurable beyond our shared sight, its innumerable

interpretations at a speed any dogma they offer can’t possibly hold.

Never returning to one place, it extends where doctrine cannot go.

Say, no. Say, the stars in this system are too fixed for that, poet.
I imagine too much. But if this wish were any simpler it’d be cruel,

every theme of my verse making soul finally finds its brazenness.

Reviews

[Miss Sharon]

You are a deep thinker and master of life's fire. The imagery within your poetry holds your reader a willing captive from beginning to end. ~Sharon