THIMBLE WIT

Some too Fragile for the winter winds, the thoughtful grave encloses.

Tenderly tucking them in from frost before their feet are cold.

Never the treasures in her nest the cautious grave exposes.

Earth where silent lay the bones of Mothers left alone.

This covert have all the children early aged and often cold.

This covert holds all the Fathers worked right to their weary bones.

Sparrows unnoticed by the sunbeams, deer for whom time had not a fold.

Not a fold.

"Deny yourself the experience of the great kiss! Oh, you don't know the joy that could have been.

"Nobody blows 'em like I do Miss! Though they try and they try again and again."

Gnashing his teeth he put his balloons in his pocket. "Idiots," mumbling beneath his breath.

Victory-less he walked on through the quarter emerging at the river's gentle clef.

"Unreal," he noticed a girl at the end of the moonwalk where no tourist ever go.

"Please friend let me reveal some spots you can make some money. Listen…"

Amusia's concentration slipped. The clown impeded her flow.

Her voice rose up to reply "Money ain't my life's ambition."

"What do you call your act?" she said. "I've seen you all around."

"I tell the marks to call me Kiss, it's short for Kiss my ass the Clown."

He thought himself the cleverest,

She left him on the mighty Miss. The mighty Miss.

Pretty little peach how did you know I'd come to squeeze your sweet skin between my teeth?

Tiger Lily, swinging with the breeze, how did I know you'd leave your fragrance on my sheet?

If you are here than the end must be near and I'm not afraid of the change.

I ain't lived long but I have lived hard. I've loved it here and it's strange,

I never believed in myself all those years. I always thought I'd wane and I'd fail.

Now to have earned your heart I'm confused, have I died? Are you my "just life's reward."

The galaxies backbone casting our shadows, as they kiss on the ground we're in love.

Your lips are so warm they leave me trembling like the storm shakes the leaves on the trees just before.

If this ship goes down and the band plays on, I long to be part of the ensemble.

Privileged are the few, whom sometime this life get to feast their hungry eyes on you.

I would wrap your legs in peels of lace aplenty and the southern breeze reveal contours sublime.

Eastern European melodies would play in cafes to score our vivacious lives.

A circus of muses would play in circle to a carousel of clowns and mimes.

Cat's Claw tops the rusty Iron. Wish you'd hang on me that way sometime.

Don't not yet, I placed my fingers to your lips, Be here with me I'd said now it's all that I regret.

Dining upon one another flesh, moving the tides chest to chest.

Planned to escape Columbus's clan, Those greedy empty men can have these Islands.

A girl did flee, so young and pretty did come, With a warning we could not ignore,

Her old tribe gone, murdered or forced to mine, a madman did demand that they bring him gold.

So while elders thought of plans I fell in love.

We prepared the Cassava, To carry us above our bodies.

Our spirits would merge behind the moon. Lay beside me love I pleaded.

"Consume it with me now" she demanded and I refused. I drew her near, we fell asleep.

Soldiers kicked hot ash into our sleeping faces. They tore my love from my tortured arms, and banished me to their mines.

Don't not yet, I placed my fingers to your lips, Be here with me I'd said now it's all that I regret.

Finding myself in this mine collapse suffocating, Hoping my love is suffering less.

You were given a cell to await your inquisition. Made to sleep on a hard wooden floor inspired you to take a bolt from your door hinge and to sharpen it.

With a bad cough, black rage and despair you burrowed through those boards.

But to your dismay liberty yielded to brick below.

Through a stone wall we met and determined our pact. Passed notes between cells written in wine on cloth napkins.

Behind a painting I bored a hole through our wall, than you boosted me up to the Garrett where I let my hand down.

We climbed into the inquisitor's room, but it must have been a holiday for no one was there.

You proudly strode into the confiscation closet. Emerged adorned in the lace ruffed shirt that they had taken away.

You drew your silk stockings high and we hid outside waiting for the gates to open.

My heart skipped beats as we walked passed the guard, as they searched a new captive we slipped through the arch like we owned the place.

Rejoicing we embraced in the street. I knelt and kissed the ground than I watched you board a Gondola

and I whispered a wish to the wind to again merge our paths somehow.

Somehow, my playful heart.

A Thunderstorm came marching in as she lay writing.

A lightning bolt struck hard a half a block away,

and the pressure shook her jaw and the memory she'd recall would not let her sleep.

Her Mother was ashamed she wasn't born a beauty queen.

Her Father passed away at the end of second grade.

A patch of Vitiligo framed an eye in hues of clay.

High school thus was maimed by a new insult each day.

She hid until the day a traveler carried her away

to the Capitol to blockade the streets in the name of better things.

Along the way it fell apart she gave in; he broke her heart,

and in the prison she lost all hope for humanity.

What no one knew was that she'd long been counting nickles.

For a decade she'd gone and squirreled away each dime, and she

bought a van and packed up what she'd needed and

left with no goodbye.

Slow drag you sure are dragging me down I'm almost begging the crowd when I hear that blue drag.

Blue drag it's got that new lazy swing — I crave that new crazy swing. I must have that blue drag.

Oh that rhythm blue rhythm has brought me peculiar things.

Oh that rhythm blue rhythm has got me feeling peculiar ways I can't get enough of blue drag.

It's got my soul on fire. I know that I'll never tire of that low down blue drag.