We Danced

“Dancing is…life itself.” –Havelock Ellis

In the age of plague, we found ourselves dancing for our lives inside the dark.
                                  We drowned our dread in the music of our making, inside the silky dark.

This way, we levitated, rose above morass and swore
to not surrender to seduction of the dark.

Instead, yielding to the blood flow, the outpour
of our desire, we turned together, following rhythm of the dark.

                      We danced
                           despite the raging, creature darkening our door,
                           round and around,
holding tight each other’s flesh within the dark.

Breathing labored, we drew life from Terpsichore,
                                                                     swaying in the shadows
fluttering dangerously in the dark.

We resisted death this way, moving to the melody of encore-
                                                                     a different ending,
our arms and hands parting the fragile promise of a future outside the dark.

The passing black stole minds as well as lives, the futures of all those birthed before
the Great Mortality descended, the drenching dark.

We defied the fall- death galore.
We stole back life in the midst of dark.

Now aged, our future wanes, footsore
lurking silent, sweet kiss of dark.

We meet again mortality, death that’s come before.
Once we sidestepped fate, creating time in pulse, but now
we slow, no longer fearing dark.

The Sunday Whirl

Wishes In

The pit has been ripped open, now.
It is gaping, dilating.
Could I reside inside its swell,
inside
its glowing burn?

The cliff I stand, trembling, on, looking down
is made of porcelain and unreal. 
I throw, at least,
my wishes in,
what lives inside me, splitting.

Flames lick at my feet, calling tongues, importuning- come inside,
come back,
              drink
             your fortune here.  Here,
where fire
           flows.  Taste goodness,
          experience the purity of falling,
                    of resolute release, taste freedom. 

The rippling desire grows
from deep-seated seed; from the pit, and the call
reaches a fever-pitch, a swell, rising up, high-whistled, excited,
drowning out the dark.

Then,
the notes stand
              still.

Can I abandon earth?  Give up warmth
for heat?  Forsake ground? 

What cracks?  My habit of step?  Of self?
               My will?  My stance upon these loosening muds?

Descending, I rise
and leaping feels like landing
and the call envelops me in her wash.

I dreamt of death,
of the light beyond my grasp
in day,
the healing
                              depths finally held
but my hands were sweating and I woke.

The Sunday Whirl