We were smuggling role players into actors’ waters
playing and displaying
against the crooked columns leaning on Wall Street.

We fixed flocks to our mock drama as we doubled the negativity
“...to a level that is as outrageous as it is captivating” –The Village Sun lighting our plank
in the red warmth that blazed when the tension of the lines met the score in a crescendo
that raised more hairs than bounty
so crested to match monsoons
but rippled against the Sound of Manhattan,
meekly bobbing barges and dead on the docks.

So we float
as long as we have breath with which to play;
a bottle of wine,
an inevitably sinking casualty of the undertow.
We shy into the calming void,
unwrapping from our reclusive closure upon a welcoming audience of sunken martyrs
wearing cinder-block shackles as their sentence.

The current hums applause
and above, The Sun still dimly lights this muddy deck,
but if these curtains close now, it would be the last time.
They will remain furled
rippling for an encore
to sail us deeper into the murky foundations of this sunken city,
and even the rings will clatter defiantly across the rusted banjo on their closing,
playing out their own opinions until their silent hanging.

06/26/2004

Author's Note: ?

Posted on 06/26/2004
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