Poem: Dynamite
Some dynamites are dressed in everyday things
Some dynamites are dressed as books.
They’re dangerous.
No easy toy reads by a bedside lamp.
Sit up straight, eyes wide open, and digest them with care.
They demand to participate and filter them, wash the husk
Until it becomes yours, privately, a kept secret between you two.
It won’t matter if you “dislike” them and throw them underneath, where no one looks.
You will find your way back to them, naturally, simply.
You’re in its orbit if that happens, and it doesn’t grant you another choice.
Some dynamites are dressed as madmen.
The few, tad more dangerous.
No easy chat-alongs at a glee party.
Or scrutinies by pen and fork,
Throw them out, Into the sun-scorched
And dust where they belong.
They demand a meeting eye-to-eye, to sing
along harmonies for ballads unfathomed.
You will be wary of them, as you should
and keep them apart for a while.
Until you find yourself sneaking back to their lone cabin,
in the twilight hour amidst glee parties.
You’re in their orbit if that happens.
Some dynamites are dressed as dances.
They detonate least expected,
where the drum of our motions acquire rust.
No regular thumps at weddings stale,
they demand leaps and injuries and scar tissues,
as you fall prey to their rhythms, sewn from
threads of those great lovers and boomers.
You will be exhausted and bloodied,
You are the prey it preys upon, and escape you will
Until in that madness you decide to retrace,
and pursue it back, to hunt
and steal a last dance in its orbit.
You are the dance and the planet if that happens.
Some dynamites are dressed as calamities.
They burn through you, locked down that you are.
No mere flatlines along a running motor,
You’re abducted into that gagged silence, bearing,
bound foot and arm, She commands you,
to sing with mouth gagged,
to write with hands bound, scarred
to dance with legs tied, broken,
And you will despise her for it,
Until in the end, as she unties you and departs,
You plead her to stay a day longer.
For you shined most when abducted
and your songs acquired a boom unheard of.
You’re in her orbit if that happens, you helpless one.
Some dynamites are dressed as words.
They’re fatal when spoken,
Even more so when sung,
Even more so when whispered, beware.
No easy banter to tickle along amidst beer and ale,
friend and brother, sister, and queens.
They command you into stillness,
so you may weigh and inhale them. Gently now.
The heaviness too much to bear, you steal away
into the markets open, where words are cheaper,
lighter, easier. You heave a sigh of relief,
Only to find yourself gasping for weightier breath,
You now shun lightness and seek out mightier words.
You are the speaker and spoken.
Your words orbit around you if that happens.
Some dynamites are dressed
As You, as you seem now, plain, slender, cornered.
They told me you’re safe and walk past us,
as I watch you harder head to toe.
I doubt that. What are you?
I step back, keeping a distance, calculating,
Meditating on you. You deceiver, shapeshifter.
No easy cogs on a wheel, bricks on a home
disguised, camouflaged in soot, I see you
and brush aside all feathers betwixt us.
You are the book, the dance, the word
and the peculiar. And the day comes,
When it won’t matter if I dislike you, scorn you,
cheat you, and brush you underneath, where all is forgotten.
That day, I shall find my way back to you, naturally, simply.
I am in your orbit if that happens, and you don’t grant me another choice.
Some dynamites are dressed as you. Aye,
And you’re even more dangerous than the rest.
