Sneakers, the vehicle of Mercury,

An off-road winged phenomenon,

Be it the mark of a weary traveler

Or to dangle from an electric lifeline,

Laces groping wires like

A trapeze artist gone awry.

 

Anger, a hot bubbling cauldron,

Spices boiling

And towering columns of water

Spilling, upsettingly unto

The porous ground,

Noxious liquid seeping in

Like a yellow sponge diluted with

Red food dye.

 

Falling, a raced heart beat

No drummer can replicate.

Velocity and vertigo

Intertwine as you tumble

Toward the distant Earth,

Under the influence

Of gravity,

Yet consecutively,

You rise to a higher plateau

Then was ever previously known.

 

Hair, a parcel

From inside your skull,

Soft, delicate,

Predetermined in shade

And it grows continually,

Even after death,

It spurts out

Like hands pushing through Earth.

 

Cigarette smoke, shapeless,

A plume of telling magnolia

Dispersing the air and filtering in

A bowling alley stench,

And rather than cumulus bunnies,

Out puffs telltale Jurassic beasts,

Hints of menthol

And year-round winter condensation.

 

Android, a middle ground

Between life and machine,

A blinking board of dials and knobs

Engenders a flood of saline tears.

You’re only human,

But it’s only relative.

 

Mistakes are erasers to chalk dust,

Like fairy powder splayed upon tablets,

They are the precursor to excellence,

A broken twig in a man of wicker,

A strand of hay in a hill of needles,

A conceptual conception of masterpiece.

 

Blood is a river of you,

Your milk of life,

Cornflower blue,

Coursing through varicose veins,

Suffusing to scarlet in lieu of air

Like a cautious chameleon.

You’re metallic in taste,

Plasmatic to touch.

Choose a letter – A, B, or O

And shield it from the light, player one.

 

The night sky is a face,

A pictograph of connect-the-dots,

Egyptian blue, gleaming with glitter,

Infinite spaces in between stars

And unlimited possibilities.

What secrets do you conceal?

Who roams this realm

In chariots of titanium

And horses of scorching jet fuel?

 

Leaves are the children of trees

And as they disperse in Autumn

As the wind caresses your back,

We observe a moment of silence,

A funeral garland

Of apple red and pumpkin orange

And school bus yellow,

As the forest floor is painted over

In brusque brush strokes.