Nadia Part Six

THE POET

She told me once that she traveled the world.
She told me all the places she had been:

A lioness with a mane,
A cobra’s back, a fox’s tail
Tender, defender, loyal
Venomous, always on the run

No one could catch...

Spain, the spiral Barcelona
Kenya, aiding weakened impulses
Mexican salvation in ruins
London, roundabout renegade

...and no one could catch her.
And everyone dared...

In the town of Kalandastan,
You promised an evening of the three passions:
Magnetism, Solar Radiation, and Optimism.

Enough for everyone.
A rattail in my beer.
A junkie priest.
A homeless home.

We are not talking of a second coming.
Or a ravaged revengeful plague.
Or a stroll down a stream.
Or a Kabbahlist’s mystical number.

A monk’s haiku thought
A rebel’s sonnet sword
A devil’s septuplet tongue
An angel’s wasteland edit

And her actions, her verbs, her swollen affection
A rock star without a band, sound, audience
But with all the applause, venue, harmony
She captured me there, inside those walls of that symbolic play.

Action! Cut! Edit...
Exterminate, execute, an exercise.

‘things were much harder then,
we didn’t have money then,
we didn’t have much at all’

And sometimes we were happier
Much more in love
Much more in touch with each other
And we were never alone.

I loved that girl, and she loved the wind
Always moving through me, a slow desert roll
Music from my vanity for our love
Passion screams at my concert, my audience, me:

The fool.