Winter run

Laughter and giggles

Screams to sled

Fast going down

Slow returning up

Puffing fog breath

To the start

Laughing to tumble

Roars and rumbles

As snow machines

Pull sleigh and tire

On the flat

By plowed ice rinks

Skaters twirl

Rope toss each other

Lovers walk the strolling path

Hold hands with each other

Moms and dads

Children near

Grandparents dear

Saunters trail the doe

Had tread in the woods

The elder children

By the nearby tree line

Build forts and castles

To mock ice sculptures

Competitors raise

The colored lights from the town

As the sun sinks behind it

Glow with the dusk

Community

Spirit

Lingers into the candlelight

Of the little churches

Mosque and temples

Of their hearts

As the last lights are

Turned off

The life of winter

Continues

In the breezy swirls

Of snow tumbling

To our front door

68

Run the balance

Through the scales

Like guitar riffs

With running fingers

Grooves into the morn

Like a fucking master

Seals the approval

A little high-pitched squeal

A resolve to out-do all

Return to the days

When summer blasts

We’re done with

Window sill speakers

Blaring the neighbors’ ears

Into the Friday

Night boisterous

Psychedelic adventures

Lured like a fish

With a shiny sparkle

To capture the minds of glitter bug

It’s the beat

That’s captured you

Enthralled you

Throbbing through you

Like the rumble of a Chrysler

Heading down the highway

At 80 mph and sum

The drugs you smoked before

Are just enhancers

To the catastrophic decades

Down the road

The one you never thought would be

The jam has stuck

To a funky riff

As you swallow the pill of today

Anything to disappear

When it gets too funky

The funky

Will want you to disappear

The fade starts

Slowly at first to a strobe

A brief silence

A distant thunder rolls in

Sonorous beat thuds to your heart

Corpuscles pulse

As you hold your breath

Through the crash

It’s the fucking base

Pounding against your chest

When you release your step

Into the eternal haze

Floating you to your next beer

And cigarette

Naked on dew-wet bluegrass

Transfer plains and we believe

The world is ours

We believe in many things

And years slowly break

Them down

They break them down

With nothing to show for them

The derelict feeling

Sometimes the stench

Sticking to your skin

See them alone wandering

Stuck to the concrete

Plastered in front of us

Like a minefield

Watch your step

Or the caustic spew of rant

Will roll up on your cheek

Sticky sneer

Under corpuscle breath

The muse changes

Transforms

Ignites another term

Of reality bent to sound and light

And set fire

To the music of the movement

69

There’s a door that opens

Unto a running shore

A place where you may

Run away if you want

With no one to stop you

Except maybe your shadow

And an angel praying

Pouring herself like gasoline on water

Set it all on fire.