Strange this trip back in time
Not with flesh and blood
But in disguise of words
The muscles the cells changing
Dying and yet somehow surviving
Traveling through a warped time tunnel
Through an origin you cannot remember
Because there is no you to remember it
Walking behind my shadow
Shedding the years like
A burlesque dancer sheds her clothes
.
I who have never called myself a poet
Never clothed myself in consonants
Vowels similes or metaphors
Yet planting the words on the page
Like a florist prepares a bridal banquet
A tender arrangement of flesh and bone
At war with the demons who leave behind
A Custer massacre of words
.
Approaching eighty I race the clock like
a hungry dog sniffs a gourmet meal
Left feeling like the last sentinel
The last paying customer
At the last movie show
.
All these years an explorer
Set out to discoverer a new world
Blindfolded without map or compass
.
The Holy Grail a shameless slut
Plays the role of a gypsy fortune teller
Spits out bits and pieces of the puzzle
The poems arrive like
A migration of birds
Poems mated with a full blood moon
Left cooking these strange images
Like a fry cook sweating over
A greasy grill
.
Waking at three in the morning
With half-remembered dreams
My eyes a heat-seeking missile
Honing in for an invisible kill
Feeling like a junkie overcome
With tremors
A matador waving a red flag
In the face of a raging bull
A blind man tapping
Into raw emotion
.