Reflection
in fragments

I
Black footsteps outlined in moon-glow snow
Are the only signposts
Leading my trudge-weary traveller's feet
Through a world of black and white.
 
II
"Stop following me!"
The stone faced boy yells,
"I don't know where I'm going,
And I sure as hell
Don't want you to follow me there."
But the toy house is confining,
And if they end up in the same room,
It is only inevitable not planned.
 
III
A tear falls across the face of time
Counting the hours
Salty sweet.
 
IV
A jigsaw puzzle is almost complete
Except for one blue-green,
middle-of-the-sea piece.
The two innies, one outey piece hid
For weeks under the sofa
Warping its shape.
Now, it must either be forced into place
(and hopefully nothing will break),
Or set aside, leaving a hole in the picture.
 
V
Seedy little back street bar
Full of cigarette butts.
Bottles clang like Poe's bells, keeping time
In a sort of ruined rhythmic rhyme,
While sweaty bodies dangle their wares
And grasp for stability
Against greasy bar stools
And other pungent bodies.
 
VI
Alcohol is drinking indecision.
 
VII
A young man caught up
In a grunge-art-culture phase
Sits contemplating endlessly
A new, bright colored, Roger Rabbit tattoo,
Which his peers love and family hates.
He can't decide how to explain this new
Feature to his grandchildren of the future.
Smart-boy feels dumb.
 
VIII
"This is wrong, I don't love you,"
He said, after he had removed her outer skin
And satisfied his own primal needs.
She's then left alone,
A muddied thinking statue,
Pondering how pleasure could be wrong.
IX
Concrete sidewalks
Lead concrete feet
Connected to concrete heads
In fast track ruts
Avoiding collision
And never changing.
 
X
Fading flesh colored flowers rest their heads
On a car parked far from home
With a torn out paper heart
Screaming,
"Guess you couldn't sleep either,
Hope you two relieved a little stress. . ."
 
XI
When Venus kissed the silver, sliver moon,
Flames of passion heated my pale young face,
Pressed flat, hiding quiet against old brick,
Fending off the sharp night air
Ashamed of witnessing heavenly bodies
Dancing.
 
XII
Proud woman holding golden dilution in hand
Lifts her sleeve with the free hand,
Giggling,
As she displays a series
Of self-inflicted crimson ribbons
Which mere hours before
Left her lying in a puddle of her elements
Until an any weather friend picked her up
And brought her to the bar.
 
XIII
I flew today.
I aligned my breath and let go,
Soaring over clouds,
And in the distance a glittering diamond
Lighted a multi-faceted path
Over the land of cotton.
 
XIV
A figure stops mid-stride in a parking lot,
A placid old face stares into driving eyes
And one finger points statuesque to a sign
While the car rolls cautiously past.
In the store, the slow calm woman
Accosts a frenzied shopper,
"Why do you young people think
'Stop' doesn't apply to you?"
 
envoy
How easy it seems
To chain oneself to pain,
And allow pleasure to fly away.

© 1997 wendi loomis "Reflection in Fragments"

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