Looking For Company

I carry my colorful caravan
To clans outside my maps,
Eager to seduce conversations
That grow from gooey glances.

I deck the planks with fetishes,
Pristine flowers and crystal ice-cubes,
Liquid laughter and dilated dreams,
Milky musings and hoary heartbreaks,
All now ageing under the blond wood,
All kidnapped during my survey
Of their tribal territories,
Torn by trivial tyrannies
Of censored crimes and painted primes;
I infiltrated inns and ivory towers,
My silent songs unseen by senses,
My arrivals unaccounted and unannounced
Without my caravan of many colors.

I now share tables and beds,
With peasants and patrons,
Pilferers and prosecutors,
With poets and posers,
I dine, wine and shine with them,
And then retire to my moldy caravan,
To nightmares that come to empty hearts.

Mornings mark my fearful flights,
Crossing plateaus and plains between pickets,
And ridges and ravines too,
The company of myself the only chance
I have at redeeming my loneliness,
Continuing conversations long concluded.

The blisters on my feet aren’t crying quite yet,
Their topographies tectonic and traitorous,
As if to bully me into bloated bliss
As artificial as the artifice of my art,
The gossamer gowns and saffron scents
Of the caravan I haul with handsome hands --
Hands equally blistered and pock-marked,
The weight of vacillating whispers
Lowering my limbs onto frenzied fours,
Dictating my detour into darkness,
Even as I draw my colorful caravan,
To happier homes --
My blisters haven’t wet your floors
Yet.