Rushing Air

Serrated bluffs afar,

Self perpetually cascades toward an unknown,

As fate would have it.

Rushing air whirls upwards

Glides past skin, moist

attached.

Shroud of warm dew over

Sun-touched membrane

                                                        seperates

Air from flesh.

Transmuted pale blue overhead,

Receding cloudscape.

Peircing sky evanesces to euphoric rememberance.

Rushing air floods in a stream around this body
                                                                                                de
                                                                                                    tached      
                                                                                                                                  f
                                                                                                                                  a
                                                                                                                                  l
                                                                                                                                  l
                                                                                                                                  i
                                                                                                                                  n
                                                                                                                                  g


~I wrote this several years ago, but it rings true again.

Poem (I Can’t Speak for the Wind)

I don’t know about the cold.

I am sad without hands.

I can’t speak for the wind

Which chips away at me.

When pulling a potato, I see only the blue haze.

When riding an escalator, I expect something orthopedic to happen.

Sinking in quicksand, I’m a wild appaloosa.

I fly into a rage at the sight of a double-decker bus,

I want to eat my way through the congo,

I’m a double agent who tortures himself 

and still will not speak.

I don’t know about the cold,

But I know what I like I like tropical madness,

I like to shake the coconuts

And fingerprint the pythons,-

Fevers which make the children dance.

I am sad without hands,

I’m very sad without sleeves or pockets.

Winter is coming to this city,

I can’t speak for the wind 

which chips away at me.

~James Tate