Miners

Iron sky, whether inside or out,
all the walls coal smudged 
into shadows of indigo that slash air, 
smear vision, wear on skin.


This is the earth too then, 
the black night breathed 
both cool and damp 
with lanterns for piercing the difference 
between rock & vapor just as textured.


Here are hands landing on banks of light, 
of uranium, silica, the glistening sparks 
all seed-charged sedimentary to fly, fly & stick.


So, tunneling through life, 
we may remember friends, 
the souls laborious exuberance 
gone through twists & turns 
to suddenly hit upon faces…

I have this picture:
We look
like triplets, all tar-thick
Al Jolsons with auburn hair &
the identical mad laughter
traced forth like a child's
drawing.


My god, Steve, Mar Mar & Anne, 
why dig so deep here? 
This is no mine, only our apartment 
rustling with squirrels between floors 
& nests in our heads. 

Here is your helmet & now comes the elevator. 
Going down? Yep, going down among living statues who,
though aching, share a joke, lunch, or dream

as the days hammer again pounds.


© 2005 Stephen Mead

Stars On Our Ceiling

Tulips unfold,
Tulips, an occasion of kaleidoscope
Fireworks, that quiet collision
Of the inner blue, the penumbra
White, & their core of yellow flame…

I shut my eyes & on our ceiling
Comes the same pattern.

We are dreaming of accordions
& Paris by night in 1920.

We are dreaming the ceiling & 
The ceiling dreams of us
As two tulips nude on some cloth
Surrounded by candles

Fathoms fathoms down


© 2005 Stephen Mead

Innocence

Given, used.
At stations strangers wait,
always apart.  The time
for arrival, the time
for departure, those grand
penultimate events little
more than cargo, the civil
intimacy exchange, some
minor re-establishment
of purity after it's
been bought, stolen
or smuggled...
Yes,
all feelings are luggage,
commodities packed, loaned,
borrowed free of expense
for a drink, small talk,
smile.

Such tenderness
humans might die of.


© 2005 Stephen Mead

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