NPM..... Victims of the Latest Dance Craze by Cornelius Eady The streamers choking the main arteries Of downtown. The brass band led by a child From the home for the handicapped. The old men Showing their hair (what’s left of it), The buttons of their shirts Popping in time To the salsa flooding out Of their portable headphones, And mothers letting their babies Be held by strangers. And the bus drivers Taping over their fare boxes And willing to give directions. Is there any reason to mention All the drinks are on the house? Thick, adolescent boys Dismantle their BB guns. Here is the world (what’s left of it), In brilliant motion, The oil slick at the curb Danced into a thousand Splintered steps. The bag ladies toss off their Garments To reveal wings. “This dance you do,” drawls the cop, “What do you call it?” We call it scalding the air. We call it dying with your Shoes on. And across the street The bodies of tramps Stumble In a sober language. And across the street Shy young girls step behind Their nameless boyfriends, Twirling their skirts. And under an archway A delivery boy discovers His body has learned to speak, And what does this street look like If not a runway, A polished wood floor? From the air, Insects drawn by the sweat Alight, when possible, On the blur Of torsos. It is the ride Of their tiny lives. The wind that burns their wings, The heaving, oblivious flesh, Mountains stuffed with panic, An ocean That can’t make up its mind. They drop away With the scorched taste Of vertigo. And under a swinging light bulb Some children Invent a game With the shadow the bulb makes, And the beat of their hearts. They call it dust in the mouth. They call it horse with no rider. They call it school with empty books. In the next room Their mother throws her dress away to chance. It drops to the floor Like a brush sighs across a drum head, And when she takes her lover, What are they thinking of If not a ballroom filled with mirrors, A world where no one has the right To stumble? In a parking lot An old man says this: “I am a ghost dance. I remember the way my hair felt, Damp with sweat and wind. When the wind kisses the leaves, I am dancing. When the subway hits the third rail, I am dancing. When the barrel goes over Niagara Falls, I am dancing. Music rings my bones like metal. O, Jazz has come from heaven,” he says, And at the z he jumps, arcing his back like a heron’s neck, And stands suddenly revealed As a balance demon, A home for Stetson hats. We have all caught the itch: The neon artist Wiring up his legs, The tourist couple Recording the twist on their Instamatic camera, And in a factory, A janitor asks his broom For a waltz, And he grasps it like a woman He’d have to live another Life to meet, And he spins around the dust bin And machines and thinks: Is everybody happy? And he spins out the side door, Avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk, Grinning as if he’d just received The deepest kiss in the world.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 16:30:00 +0000