Childhood – Improv, 15 August 2021

Sunlight had no warranty and the poor reflection of its traveling band
Had not worn it out as it reached out in quiet bands
Ultraviolet fingernails in sonic screams and radio swells
The sound of the fusion and collision each minute is swift and extensive
Birth of the flower as the bee has made its way from leaf to leaf
In its own orbiting way
Bopping from one to the next with pep in its step
Plump it drifts through the air
As though on a string programmed by the spring it does not wait
Nor care.

Our youth was more like spring, like a dream,
The timeless passing of blurry scenes
A face as red as the rose of the first of June
by Summer’s end had the pallor and lost its scent;
And each time the wind blows and tugs at the rose
We catch a glimpse of then, of when, of yesterday
To chase it again
To chase after youth with the folly of fools
And the wisdom of kings without subjects or rules
In a kingdom of sand whose shadows make new
Each day a barrier for the troops
The wind commands the silent platoon as it marches on
With intent to a tune.
Humming as the be as it follows, it flew
Red as the morning was the afternoon of a lazy day’s narcosis of youth
We chase the numbness not the fruit and taste the bitter pill –
The truth

No one alive who lifts to the sky and throws themselves to the ground to miss
To fly
Wants to hit the concrete with a silent goodbye
But a resounding rejection of a concrete ply
Gentle as a blanket, a quilt that belies
The deception we play on ourselves when we lie
Dreaming of youth is a fear that we’ll die
And in this fear we forget to live and silently watch and
“Life just gives
And we take what we can with the cash in hand
We’ll bet a round or two and spin
The roulette wheel gives but what it will
What it can doesn’t matter only what it can steal
And on house money we take to the spin
Once to play the carousel flies
The glassmaker is a blind man who lies;
The shopping spree has no grand prize
The inmates are in charge and that
Explains the lighthouse bulb turning black
Ships chasing sirens and never coming back
Lost on the rocks in somnolent acts
Lazily lusting for the possibility and chance
To catch the air we grasp when we ask
The air to catch us when we pass.

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