CATHARTIC REFLECTIONS IN A 3A.M. GREYHOUND WINDOW  

i wish i could pinpoint
the precise moment
the updraft came
&carried me away
from the insomnicidal
nightmarish earth
to this field of vivid flowering

that viledreaming teemed with beasts
of all mythologies-
maddening sirens, junksick vampires
hungry wolves, &soulbuying devils

&i expected deliverence
from all assortment of sources
from religion, sex &poison
&each of their inversions
all colors &flavours
of erronious vice

&then i noticed
my eyes already open, percieving
a running water color sky
i don't know why
or how it happened

i expected one of my many
waltzes with death
to rouse me-
like the hot/cold
delirious overdose
or being thrown thru
a car window
in the mountains of idaho

i waited for these to change me
transform, cleanse, &raise me
but each morning i rose
the same old man

i guess an exlovers attempt
at suicide said something
to center, about
lifes immeasurable value
about mans fickle desires
about the ugliness of
giving onesself up
to the charcoal teeth of madness

&maybe sleeping next
to a wellspoken prostitute
in a frigid, welltrimmed
hedged in churchyard
in warm desireless empathy
opened my heart
to softer sorts of beauty

or maybe its just good to be a poet on wine

or maybe my new wings
are fashioned from, &fastened by
that old cliché that is
new to me
that narcotic
antibiotic
called
love

i really don't know
what changed, what shifted
what strange breeze took hold of my feathers

i do know
that when the last cloud
rains out
i think
from up here
i'll see eden again
with fresh eyes percieving
dawns shimmering dew
where even
carrion glitters
obsidian

- written 3am, somewhere between kamloops&jasper

© 2006 ct staples