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 

Happy Birthday to You (poem)

Happy birthday.
This year I’m planning for a concert,
a short trip to Toronto,
and thinking of the death of an old friend
a passionate and intense person
now gone with only memories to remain.

Happy birthday,
you’re not even 30 yet;
aren’t we too young to bury each other?
Isn’t it too early to die? 

-Zero 

what meadow whispers? (poem)

The meadow whispers to me – why
can’t I feel the grass between my fingers?
Has winter consumed me so long
I can no longer remember the light, the breeze?
Has this city-locked life mowed them down
for another parking lot or shitty condo
constructed with a hunger in their design:
money, money, money, money.

Maybe the snow has gotten to me,
maybe I ought to close my eyes and wait
for spring to come crashing down
and follow the whispers all the way back home.

-Zero