A Sound Peace of Mime

The Laughing Ballerina
a poem by Michael Aaron Lloyd

I lose myself
in the valley
that is her skin
and love my being lost —
for the travel entailed
is a utopia all its own.

I am kept still in her presence,
my wandering mind
somehow feeling ease in her plains,
her gentle mountain side
curving winds hunger for
an overcast of still skies
and no need for warning.

Her windows clear
sight seen through panes.
modest choir chanting her vowels,
slowly like a snake,
slithering through the vines of her forest.

Loud marches stretch out like the tides,
they break her sea
it is clear in the distance,
perhaps not - -
 a miasmal hue
 in the waters.
Still I enter them
 without fear.

Playwright

Patient walks into Therapists Office,
Therapist asks patient if he can smoke during their session.
Tells him that it eases the tension, it calms him down.
Patient nods respectfully, Therapist lights cigarette.
“Your session has begun - - I will give you an extra five minutes on the hour.”
“We will begin with the first five, first, the hour will follow.”
“We will begin by hypnotizing you.”
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.

With Gain, Comes Loss
a poem by Michael Aaron Lloyd

Keep in mind
the empty swells
and shallow waters
her gloom like an oak,
an anchor on an
abandoned ship
a wedding dress
in a thrift store.

Waters caught behind rocks.
dammed not damned.
   
We are damned
        (fortune is a lonely road)
                     — for believing in love,
like love lost to the great sea of lust,
and laughter
limp and lucid
off in the corner,
the darkness of a room.

The light shows through walls,
ghosts trailing their fingers
across the chandeliers,
no longer lit.

What a beautiful smile,
she had, in photographs
framed in memories,
remembered in vain.

I had collected
in their remembrance
leaves from the trees
and stones and the bones
and requiem
like ripped pages
torn from our own books.

soul reacts retreating
retreat,
no longer
half massed
flags masked
and worn ashen
through age.

We are jealous creatures - -
notifying the heart
that heaven is full
and the grounds once made
of cobblestone and marble
now trail mud in to the house
and the wings wont work right
unless you pay the taxes on flight.
We are all trying to get somewhere.

“Hurry,” not “Hello.”
Time consumes me,
I think of the seconds
wishing they had longer.
Days staring at years
off in the distance.
Calendar funerals
the obituary of the century,
The weeks are weak,
still learning
month to month.

I watch the sun rise
thinking about the moon.

Does fear have a fingerprint?
Does rage have a face?
Does regret learn to cope
with the changes
or disappear all together.

My finger taps a wooden table three times,
I remember that.
Glass half empty,
lampshade persuading
light to appreciate darkness.
Courage is the
illegible
ruins of an
 unspoken language
in a crooked statue
crumbling before
that unspeakable
beast called fear.

There in a place,
I am looking up,
ancient windows
staring down at me
as if
I were
the
monument.

The plague,
whisper
to me
I am the dust
in your book-jacket,
the star seen
once
in a blue moon.

The skies are grey,
and my hands are still cold.
This,
of my travels—
my soul :: The only currency, I hold ::
                        and even that
                            only worth a few coins.
                                Wont that buy me drink,
                                I stand empty, collapsed
                                only a shadow
                                beneath a street lamp.

                        Motherly instincts,
                        the hands still clutch
                        to care for, to collect calls
                        and calm crisis.
                   
                    The insect world understand purpose,
                         They protect the one that creates.

                            I cannot hear
                            the screams
                            they call.
                           
                            I am not
                            the one
                            you are looking for.

                            I am still young,
                            in bloom
                            waiting to flower.

                            Existence is furious,
                            bury your flames
                            beneath the sands
                            of time.
                       
                            Those scars will heal,
                            They will teach
                            to be taught.
                       
                               

Rumor

no.1
Blunt
like this bite,
it gnaws on this city,
her lights illuminating
shadows, growing fangs
and still the rays of this
sun could ignite this city
in flames,
    and shoals of ash
            in copper urns
                This sun a mass,
                    This city burns.
                    Do I leave the fire,
                    escape again?
                    and hide beneath the soil,
                    or do I burn?
                I am begging for my place in heaven
                well enduring the many stages of your hell.
                I am full and fallow,
                cray to the idea of age.
                further do I chase
                my shadow,
                does the day turn.




    no. 2
            Break to pieces,
            Shattered face
            Fell to the fields,
            and was cut by
            the blades of grass.
            the heart is an organ,
            nothing more.
            it does not break,
            does not shatter,
            Like glass.
            I am looking through,
            and seeing nothing
            on the other side.
            Your tragedy,
            human, not a mystery.
            Understand this,
            This is nothing.

no. 3

    Daughters,
    chose your weapons,   
    baron grains of wrath.
    Your father’s war - -
    still fighting it, walking
    in his footsteps,
    the stories shared.
    the wounds they heal,
    the paths walked become
    more pronounced with
    the passing of time.
    They put up signs,
    build cities in their place.
    The cities crumble,
    concrete blocks lay around
    like gravestones.
    Animals again graze,
    History books written,
    Children learn to avoid,
    mistakes.
    Mother wears apron,
    places roast in oven.
    Child thinks of cemetery gates
    lampshades made of skin
    and that historical mustache.
    the voice that roared like a lion,
    all of the hands that praised.
    nations come, nations came, nations decay, nations shame.
    Teacher writes in red,
    boy shedding tears,
    blaming memory
    the lack of,  drawing utensils.
    paint brushes,
    we will get back to the war soon enough.
    “Not until you have eaten all of your vegetables!”
   
   

A Dedication to Tony Nelson

Ghost,
the hustler
three gram
harmony.

A black man,
soda shakes
in alleyways.

Desperate descent
into the
minister’s maze.

Stop,
he speaks
straight.

Three
    Years
        Deep.
    The avenues have
                alphabet letters,
                        The drugs came in on ships,
                        could have been slave ships?
                            “The spics counted their money,
                            The niggers smoked or shot theirs.”
                Poets used to stand on street corners,
                Drug dealers and business men
                settling on the hells of the burden.
                Continued shaking hands,
                Thematic, means of transportation, gunpowder, trumpet red
                - echoes in prison cells,
                she’s still out there
                waiting by the telephone.
                    “Sorry what were we talking about?
                        - - Oh yes! The avenues.”
                        A,
                            Because
                                    It
                                        C/
                                            Seems
                                                Dealers
                                            Even
                                        Animals
                                    Begging
                                Collectors
                            Dealers
                                Evolve
                                    .
                            . Could I borrow a dollar until next Tuesday?
               

Find your meadow,
go there - - be freed
by its tall grasses,
its delicate waters
flowing through
jovial creeks.

Keep this in mind —
remember me in this way.

Before,
there are masks
stacked up in the corner
of the room.
The windows
are boarded up
and their are cloths
over all of the lamps.
Inkwells turned over
and dripping onto the floor.
There are scraps of paper
torn from books,
photographs of those
american families.
The lowercase was intentional.
I counted the miles,
the distance
and hours between
visits.

I remember your scent,
I recollect hope in the time we spent.

I looked through yours eyes,
saw the paradise inside.

I wore your heart
and thought of what
it meant to be two as one.

Summer brought
 insects
and a change
in the moon’s
shadow.

I carefully
watched you breathe.
like an angel
walking
the earth
I fell deep into thee.

Self Reflection

Gems in the bottom
of the sea,
shadows
eyeless creatures
seeing a world more
than me,
then again I have colour.
    I have words,
    Special tombs
    called sentences
    Where I bury
    my memories
    until their ghosts
    reappear.

    Dreams of beehives
    and suicide letters
    Insects and Aztecs,   
    gods and windowless rooms,
    fevers dreams to escape nightmares,
    rusted mazes and decayed industry.
    The dust on all of the shells,
    The mercury in her eyes.
    Whoever she is..
        Passing like a shoaled caravan of nomads,
            Always the ever reappearing desert,
            Still I find myself writing about shorelines
            We all must dream, isn’t that so? I am sure of it.
            I gather myself,
            beheaded by the typewriter,
            At least I will rest my head on it.
            A pillow, an antique, a mirror of sorts,
            I see myself in the keys,
            their capable voice, sure of so many words.
           
            This is for no one,
            but I still follow this dream.
            I chase it around
            through the days
            the footsteps of a calendar.
            Lonely the months become,
            alone in this room.
            I listen for the rustling of the trees,
            watch the decay and changing colours of the leaves.
            I listen for the walls to swell and floors to creek,
            I hear the voices of the hall, I listen to the house speak.
            I am taunted by the urge to lock the doors,
            the seal the windows and write on the walls.
            The stories illustrated from within.

            I met her,
            Strange her eyes looked like mine,
            before I even looked into them.   
            Her eyes met mine,
            The electricity
            could have lit a city.
           
           
           
           
           


   

The looking glass

Colored in calligraphic

Mirror image,

Mere murmurs

In a meadow of misery.

Mastery mimicked martyrdom

In minimal wanderings.

Still I have my memories,

Dashboard skyline

A pause and pleading of relief

The hospital sheets

Plastic statues of Christ,

Children playing in the fields.

Sundress

- - sun goes down

                —son grows up.

                The history of these arms,

                Still driving the highways.

                Stop sign predictability

                Predicting predicaments.

                A chance to share in this view,

                All of the beauty you shared,

                Was yours - - I borrowed what was yours.

Kneeling at your bed side,

The ashes kept in urns,

Family crest crushed

I am cured of this,

repent and repeat

obscurity written clearly

un-understood, there is no understanding.

No response,

Directional arrows drawn on,

A friend looking out.

The key fits,

 In fits of worry.

The glass is jaded,

I see you there.

Memories revisit as ghosts,

You are haunting me.

I carry your soul

As a trophy of courage.

Still we try

to understand.

                That street, I keep my distance like a secret.

                I am reminded still of the rust on the metallic objects,

                Locks with no keys - - I am watching the sunrise.

                All in scraps, scars and scurries of sacrament

                The funeral director asked to cut the service short,

                The tears of us - - the three of us.

                Her and her lost compass, still following a path with no direction other than love.

                Him, he, his humor, his understanding, swept away by the wind.

                And I, I am the collector, I have come to recollect, the seal all of the cracks

                And piece the pieces, to seek out peace.

                All of these heads down, hand in hand.

                We are not alone,

                I can feel her

                In all of the trees,

                The seasons changing

(unfinished)

Wait for me, waiting,

worthless warlords bathe

in their aggregate tears.

Towers resume

watching over

their creators.

Like business men

pondering pyramids

Cursing

I began hiding in the waves
of technology, with a machine like manner
a digital man made of macabre.
writing for the crowds, not for the benefit
of being given a map to my soul.
traveled that plans, misunderstood and hungry for thought.
through thought dined alone,
paid for its own meal
and slept alone at night.
tugging at the sheets, recoil,
a children’s toy teach a man
to slink and breathe,
once in a while.

Now then,
still liquids feeding from hospital sheets,
street-lamps lighting the way.
those back alley prescriptions,
robotic arms performing surgery,
robotic nurses tending to the debris,
robotic heart is robotic boxes,
boxing robotic robberies
blaming robotic odds for robotic faiths.
facing the crowd in a similar way,
a mirror of my emotions,
a mere emotion.