Last Bender

At night they disappear

between the stars, swallowed up

by abysses lit with street lights

in the dim orange fog of skies

into flag draped coffins or meteor

showers of voices washing over

the republic. The laughter goes on,

prolonged for hours.

By day they reappear

the others fade to grey submerged

in the brightness or stretched

like an old, overused cloth

a band of dirty horizon.

Emergence then of night

negatives leap to life and I

hideous,glowing, spectral

am stalked by the death defying reality

of shoe shine men who horripilate

with long incoherent snaps of the cloth

tales of rock soup prepared over open fires

and burning plantations in Haiti.

They, melted down by the boreal fires

from the ink in my pen and gelled

become a black egg in a white frying pan

the yolks bubble and sizzle like eyes

crackling in the oil, burnt toast with a pat

of butter, harvest moon on a windless night

hopes hanging from ropes in the trees

torrential minstrelsie of sudden rain

disturbing the wind chimes