Looking Into the Eyes of Miracles

*So I have returned home. Rode back across the melting snow-plains of Wisconsin and headed off across the winding black roads that lead through the countryside and bring me back to this city. I can feel the worry of waiting here for time to move forward. Always here time seems to stop. Time is always in my mind. But there are other things that sometimes have the power to push it into the periphery where I ignore it.

LOOKING INTO THE EYES OF MIRACLES

Soft music.

Yellow light upon vein-bulged hands

That bounce rhythmically to the Nutcracker held in the heart

Of Christmas Time Spirit.

When I saw her face two days ago,

When I looked into her eyes eight years ago,

When Time stood still for me

In a momentus moment

Where even people who are busy with their thoughts

Pause to feel it pass,

Holding their breath to gaze upon

The scene of someone reaching an Event….

The candle was lit within.

The wick began to wither down

As the wax dribbled along the sides like white blood–pure blood.

But I did not feel the warmth.

Words rise up in scold.

Words go down in dismissal.

Black letters appear like magic

And fill the scrolling, expanding space

Of a place where dreams come true

And others can see them, too.

Her eyes in memory are many colors.

Placid pools, stagnant mires, ugly at times, but always true.

Her hair is different shapes and styles,

Her face a constant flickering change.

Nothing stays the same.

Nothing’s there to blame

For it either. The event is just an is.

Like so many things in life that we

Decide to demand explanation for,

As if there were rules to adhere to

That would give our life a better way.

Laughter, slight.

A golden medal with an eagle upside down,

Lots of pens and paper around,

A guiter with underwear wrapped around its stand,

A bullseye with many broken pegs.

Her laughter booms or falls like petals,

Orchid petals because they are my favorite

Just like her. And when she comes in the night

In that wicked white light of foggy mist

That wraps around me and my blankets and my head,

And dances before my eyes as if they were ghosts

And I had died….well, when it haunts me and I scream out,

Her name is always changing.

A scratch of the head

Makes a coarse sound and cuts follicles

Away with dead skin.

Little pieces breaking off all the time,

We’re all breaking.

I have friends. I have loves.

Some remain when the year moves

Around to snow or melted puddles,

Others go and fade like the ghost at the end of the night.

They are stars to me, and life is the ever waiting sun.

When dawn comes, they cannot stay,

They hide away.

And I forget that they are still there.

Blinking.

A small black clock with blood red numbers

It doesn’t tick, the only sound from down below

And the hum of the machine

That makes my dreams appear for eyes to see.

I wonder if my heart will ever settle.

I wonder if my heart will ever change.

Some would argue I don’t know quite yet

What it’s made of, I’d like to think I do.

I’d like to think that I ignore the things

That others think I’m blind to.

I have my glasses on, and I can see things clearly

Enough to know what happens all around.

And while I can’t see myself through even my eyes,

I know I’m doing something wrong.

Wrong to the world.

Not wrong to me.

Not wrong at all if the world could just see these things.

If I could just speak my dreams.

Faces changing on the side,

One or two swell up with a second’s pause,

New eyes and smiles glowing warm,

Looking for something that I have lost,

I sometimes feel I lost it for them, too.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know

That you carried some great burden on your shoulders

That could justify all the pain you sometimes feel.

Irrational you cry.

Irrational and wrong and false and sad.

Look up and smile, for God’s sakes be glad

You have a home, a roof, food, money, a life.

Hopes for future free of strife

And yet no, no–no no no.

There is something still lacking in the glow.

It’s yellow still and sick and chained.

The walls are yellow and putrid and stained.

The world around merge now with the worlds of old.

Memories and sense turn together and unfold.

And there is nothing here worth mentioning,

Nothing here at all special but everything.

Everything in its own way.

I have looked into the eyes of miracles.

I have seen the smiles that light a thousand torches

In cities that have not yet been built and lives

Not yet been lived. I have heard the voices

Of those whose words will link together people from different places,

Whose faces will return again in memories of a million minds.

I have longed for the kisses of beauty’s queens

Who one day will make some man’s dreams.

And mine will someday come: I’ve heard this sound in many tongues.

And I must wait if that be Fate.

And I will one day find joy.

All these things I know.

And yet I feel that glow.

It’s yellow still and sick and chained.

I have looked into the eyes of miracles,

And was forced to look away.