Poetry
BUTANE BEAUTY
My poet friend photographs a fallen match pack
on the bar floor,
looks like a ladies slender hand
fingers in crimson nail polish.
He usually photographs extremities as nebulas,
plastic and shattered leaves look like a courtesan in a camisole
to others,
He is in pure denial
and refuses to establish what it really is
just trash
but the imagination
is not conventional.
Two headlights in hindsight,
in the distance, pushing through
the darkest hours
casting upon my stride,
black beauty
without a saddle
riding bareback
a constellation alone.
Someone thinks they are in a Gauguin dream
and wishes to escape the material,
set sail to perfect white sands,
a harbour of shells in no one’s land
and lay down naked with exotica
and sweet ripe fruit.
A tiny smidgen of Cocteau celluloid,
a bit of Braque.
A piece of pie Picasso,
a surrealist plays chess with a rebel poet.
Toulouse! I am a wreck.
Toulouse! I am a wreck.
Your dancers keep me in check
with these drinks I would not dare
to think that far back
to what I currently lack.
I have the Mojave shakes
I am the absinthe absentee
and you are the desert flower
that pricks me
Francis A Willey
May 17 2013