Sonata In Blue

I.

like a mile-long photograph

of a mile-long prism

uniforms of nonconformity

scroll past me.

streams of colorful

many, different enough

to make war

but same enough

to stand in the same line

and head in the same direction

to ride on the same steel roller-coaster

, to eat the same bland nachos

, to drink the same stale booze.

jostling like little rivulets

to get farther downstream.

looking at a crowd in line to

fly around on metal tracks,

it's easy to believe that they

evaporate and then recycle

just to start the race again.

II.

sometimes i feel i am drowning

in noise in the river of

fractured light.

the prism is law firms, and

countries, and mayors.

the prism is prison

and currency, too.

i was told i have my own divine light, but

they're red with their wars, or they're

singing the blues, or they're green with their envy

or pale at the news.

III.

i used to wonder

if a little drop of water

was its own entity.

when it falls from the gray sky and

rolls into a stream that flows

into the river, is it itself?

the river rolls meditatively along.

a wind comes along and skips a liquid bead

onto a child's forehead,

slides down his nose

and he catches it with the tip of his tongue

and as it gathers and wells up to fall

and that bead of water

becomes an entity,

for a few seconds.

IV. (Recapitulation)

i try to swim upstream

but i don't have a will.

my only hope is a strong wind

to skim me off (if i can stay

on top)

or the waterfall ahead will plunge me

hurtling into madness

evaporating then recycling

, just to start the race again