Tsunami of Dancer's Coals


…from the line
                             of thin dancers
two                                            
step forward                     
and open their shirts
             and their trousers
                                      which then fade away
 and the lights                            
           retract to sunlight
        the stage to dirt        

Their skin is so dark            
that no shadow shows
and it is hard to see   
                             the curves of their form
      only a hint of           
                                         their breasts with footfalls
                    swelling      and dropping
a vague        lumpy               
 sense of strength
     beneath excess…  
                                        
 …behind a net of woven grass                                        
Pahn remembers                             
how embers came and caught
in the fibers that burned
too fast to douse

 Hot and dusty                                     
behind the missionary church

                    a large hardwood charcoal                               
                            glows

A group of neophytes                                 
files past                                          
            the whitewashed wood
into the bare classrooms
      while the missionary Ben Kingsley
                                  directs like Sexy Beast

 …high on the                                                  
              second terrace                                           
                    of gravel and sagebrush resting        
               above the ocean                         
                       they all watch the water become
                                                 agitated
                                               rippled
           and a larger swell rises                                       
to the shore

where they think they are safe from
it’s force

and it crosses the beach                                         
        collapsing on the terrace                                   
              rushing up the pebbles                             
                   and surrounding their                       
            tennis-shoes

consuming the rise
as it recedes

The missionary Ben Kingsley                                 
         who has followed them                                        
                with verbal damnation                                       
is swallowed by the sinking hill

appearing again
     in the outwash

cocooned…


No comments:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Some of these poems originally appeared in the following publications

Avocet
Dream International Quarterly
mojo risin'
The Muse Apprentice Guild (The MAG)
Transfer

My Photos

www.flickr.com
brian dean bollman's photos More of brian dean bollman's photos