Moondance (poem)

I always wanted another dance
to twirl in the moonlight with you.
Your hands in mine, we’d make the stars jealous
of all the romance we’d choreograph.
But we had never really danced,
that was all a dream I had as the music played,
as we stood there in your apartment half-drunk,
swaying awkwardly with my eyes on the floor
trying to follow the travelling bass and swing beats.
Your touch was paralytic, all-consuming,
accented by overwhelming fantasies called forever
while the full moon waned away to darkness.
Every song and dance begins and ends,
and with you, I could do neither.

-Zero

ghosts on a forest trail (poem)

I don’t see ghosts in trees.
Streams flow without hauntings,
the canopied sky empty of spectres.
But as I walk through quiet boughs
a chill creeps up my spine:

I am not alone.

Behind me I drag ghosts along
chained to each other, chained to me
over streams and under low hanging fruit.
I ask them about everything I see and feel,
“do you remember when...”

the forest exists only through spectral recollection.

 -Zero 

late night blues (prose poem)

The quiet blues fill the room, this basement church (and occasional bat trap) saturated with a smooth groove. The dancing is varied, improvised: two sway to the slow rhythm as another pair gently spin with the melody. 

Feel how the beat resonates through your body, how you become the music in the moment, your bodies instruments creating the song itself. Every dance is a composition, but not all compositions need bells and whistles. Some are content with smooth simplicity, with the connection that hums as bodies touch.

-Zero

surviving the April rush (poem)

April showers crash down
                                                    and I work
hunched over,
                                                    fingers flying across the keys
gotta go faster,
                                                    until words per minute
become
                                                              beats per minute.
Work getting harder;
                                        I need to be stronger,
set new records
                        Olympic times for paperwork
until night comes,
and I collapse into bed.

May buds have crept up on me.
I open my eyes to gentle flowers and sunshine.
I’ll let                the rush               slip away,
lie in the field               watch the clouds,
breathe and disappear                into the grass
work can wait               another day

 -Zero