I. So I Danced In It

Swing swing swing

Swing to the wind wound up to fires edge

I was there when the dance began in fires cradle

Plumes of ash and dust

Life created in the blistering summer sun

A child cousin born

Second son of summer fire and rain

On heated sidewalk steps the waves ebbed on brown beaten crowns

Dancing in the streets with joy as creation bloomed and bird died overhead

The second sons of summer who play the music

Jazz

Beats

Burning arias

Exposed in painted gold in waves of heat

We started the music

The atmosphere that keeps the thick air in

So I danced in it.

II. I Miss the Misty Eyes

After you were born I waited to play with you

In the sweat-soaked soil of estate yards and heat-kissed streets

But the rains beat hard after birth

Lights roaring above us shaking columns of meshed garish marble

And we watched from inside the world get washed away

From tears of misty eyes we away from the rain sang inside as bluegrass singers

You hugged me close when the wash became too strong and I laughed when the green returned

But we don’t sing any more bluegrass when the green returns outside as we stay inside all ways

When the misty eyes dried up and it stopped raining water

So I miss the misty eyes.

III. We Breathed Out the Winter Solstice

HIYA! Chop them up

Play the game summer child

Play pretend heroes in the winter solstice sun

Breath in and lungs burn but still play in breaths and frozen moans

It’s clear today cause we breathed out the winter solstice.

IV. We Couldn’t Decay

Our summer

Our spring

And winter

Songs of animal skin snare drums and child shaming folklore

Are gone now with the gold and red and brown

So down in the valleys of salted earth and decayed compost heaps

Of leaves and twigs and shit and shattered glass smelling of broken booze bottles

So swing

Swing to the beat again as the trees creak and die too soon

It’s too soon to hear these sounds of nature choking on plastic stacks creaking and calling

But to throw it away and have the wind wash it back on shores of grass leaves bent and broken

That day it was windy cousin and the decay was everywhere

That was when we accidentally kissed its lips

Felt the crunch on our faces

The leaves cousin, the leaves

They were everywhere and we couldn’t dodge the decay clinging to our cheeks and ears

The wind was bitter north and it came again on your birthday to kick up more trash

But you didn’t care

And I didn’t care

And none of us cared

But we still tried to die where we stood

To go limp like leafs on the climbing trees in uncle’s back yard and papa’s overgrown porch

After all the wind was strong enough

We could’ve died

Decayed with the rest of that colorful death

Of natural horror and man-made smoke

Cause we made it come too early again

No wait it came on its own

Either way it sucked

And that’s why we tried to die

To feel in control

Think we could be washed away by filthy air

But the air wasn’t filthy cousin

No it was clean and crisp and cool

Nature pages of bark and dead wood trees die and fall in the wake of perfect wind

Where a breeze is pure enough to forget about the junk

And balanced bags of bullshit words and theories

No cousin this was real and we stood to breathe in crisp cavaliers and middling mild heat

We wanted to die dramatically frozen in dust decay and shattered plastic shavings

And we wanted to decay but our eyes were locked on each other in purity

So no cousin we couldn’t decay

But we tried.

© 2014 Jared "I.J" Steinberg. All Rights Reserved.

#poetry