Living the Poem by Steve Robison

Green eyes gaze back
Through mirrors of reflected time
Walking once sacred mysteries
On brown grass, turning away
From winter’s chilled prison
Frozen thoughts, cold memories
Fading

He walks his dusty, empty rooms
Opens the blinds, daring to glance
At a world outside
Trees newly budding
Sod laid as winter began
Turning from sleep, from brown
To green

Stripping his bed
Pale green sheets, nearly matching cases
On pillows of soft, firm down
He sees on his nightstand
A book, half read, half finished
More yellow than green
The dust lain
On its waiting cover
Its words, prose, possibilities
Too strong, too perfect
For a scared, small heart
To dare proceed

Layered iniquities
Laid quietly
On a naked bed
Stark, white, firm, waiting
Stripped of green
Stripped of wanting; desires lost

He sits in his solitude
Staring out the window
Across a stark parking lot
At the green-painted generator
Smoking a cigarette
With two green stripes
Nicotine, menthol, smoke
Brown, green, grey
Feeding his quiet
Fueling his loss
Wandering in thoughts forgotten
Lying in dwindling wait

A photograph leans–unhung–
Against the bright window
Larger than life
A butterfly against a blurred green canvas
Feasting on echinacea
Enjoying the brevity
Of life’s sweet shortness

Abstract visions dance
On the large lcd screen
“Wake me up inside…”
The song screams
And his sleeping soul
Begins to find life…
In green rhythms
In memories wakened
In the smoldering embers
Of exotic incense
Black magic, set aflame
With a green butane lighter