Her eyes close her breath slows
Skin softens pale pallor
Yet finds its glow
Beneath the stage lights
Then she explodes

Soft silver sequined shoes
Slowly ascend and descend
Arcing at an impossible angle
Her back arches deeper and deeper
Till one would expect to hear
Her body crack and snap in half

I gasp as she spins into a leap
Tears taint my tired cheeks
As the **** breaks
From the sorrows of this week

Arms circle backward
Shirt slightly rises
Exposing the years of discipline
Abs strong as the ocean tides
Open to the world then hide

Her body becomes a centrifuge
Separating part of her soul
From her poetic form
Spinning and smiling
As chestnut hair rapidly orbits her head

I am enchanted
One hour away from life
And I needed to see something beautiful
Not ******
But transcendent
Perpetually perfected movements
One hour to disentangle myself
From the nightmare of life
And I am eternally grateful

He always wanted to be a ballerina
To dance so dainty up on his toes.
But everyone could see under his tutu
And the bump they saw was not his nose.
He had the talent and the perfect figure
To perform the balletic steps just right.
There was no way he could ever manage
To keep that ample package out of sight.

Jete, jete. Plie, Plie.
Dance like that’s all you want to do.
Dancing straight, or dancing gay,
Do whatever is right for you.
Hands and toes pointed fine
Back and necks held straight.
Maybe it’s not your time to get picked.
But make it worth their wait.

His skin was smooth just like a swaddling baby
There was no concern about flat *******.
Many ballerinas are rather mannish
With not much curvature to their chests.
So he could pass completely undetected
Androgyny was his great good friend
But any moment when he swirled about
Tutu would lift and then spell the spell would end.

Jete, jete. Plie, Plie.
Dance like that’s all you want to do.
Dancing straight, or dancing gay,
Do whatever is right for you.
Hands and toes pointed fine
Back and necks held straight.
Maybe it’s not your time to get picked.
But make it worth their wait.

He never really loved the danseur posture
The holds and lifts and hearty leaps about.
But in the world of ballet and its leaders
Ballerina guys are always left out.
Still he danced in tutu at auditions.
He heard the comments, paid them no mind.
If they could not see grandly male Pavlova
That meant that all of them were blind.

Jete, jete. Plie, Plie.
Dance like that’s all you want to do.
Dancing straight, or dancing gay,
Do whatever is right for you.
Hands and toes pointed fine
Back and necks held straight.
Maybe it’s not your time to get picked.
But make it worth their wait.

Words dance around in my head
And I choreograph sentences
But when I present them to an audience,
Nobody gives a standing ovation

"i used to dance" -
what a horrible phrase

"i used to take my body
and use it to create beauty
in a physical form
but now i don't"

"i used to hear music
not just with my ears
but with my veins
but now i don't"

"i used to feel myself
being pulled across the stage
a puppet on invisible
but beautiful strings"

"i used to see everything
in the world and in nature
as a barre or a stage
but now i don't"

"i used to dance" -
what a horrible phrase
akin somehow to
"i used to live".

a beautiful poet
dancing ballet
she tells about her favorite pet
of her dull books and a big secret

a beautiful poet
dancing ballet
on the bright red carpet
she makes me forget
about my regret


a.d.

The ballerina's pirouette:
   This is the little triolet.
Within a faëry scene and set
The ballerinas pirouette
To a limpid midnight minuet
   In Thumbelina-esque ballet.
The ballerina's pirouette:
   This is the little triolet.

I watch

You sleeping;
The movement of your body,

Your breathing,

It’s like a soul ballet.
And quietly, softly,

I watch

From a corner across the room

The dance.

she stood outside the apartment
finger halfway up her nose
scratching with her free hand
a **** loosely encased
in patchy, ***** blue jeans
ratty sneakers with holes where
her toes and dignity poked through

usually a whiner, a brayer
a donkey among gently purring cats
calling down thunder and racket
like a motorcycle tearing circles through a lamp shop

today, of all days, she swayed

silently
in loose waltz time
to soft piano of a long-dead Frenchman
curling down from speakers
mounted in windows
across the street

her misshapen hips and flexing calf muscles
lifting her up in a rude en pointe
somehow made elegant
by a quiet ballad, a soothing moment
on a hot August morning
in Main Street
of the hinterlands.

2/12/2015