The Winding Road to Felicity
(from my book Before the Bridges Fell)
Thousands gather to watch the band play one last song. An electric strike splits to the bone. One more cigarette before the rapture. Winding roads collapsing from the refugees waiting to be captured. All we can wait for is the feathers to - Begin falling from the clouds. To be caught by the calloused hands. Gasoline streams down your arms, And the bleeding eyes aren’t very far. All the lights just want to burn us while – We are still angels. The corrosion begins skin deep. Pulls magnetic to the heart to erase emotions. And the man you are, you’re far from being smart, Or even a start to the skipping record of your addictions. So, you drove from Springfield to the bowels of a nameless river. Looking for diamonds and skyscrapers and effervescent nightscapes. All you see is your scuffed shoes, your dirty face in a dirty puddle reflecting all. The ugliness caused by your fears. Dirty yellow hair that makes all the breath from the downtown swoon. And you can’t even be happy when Felicity is knocking on your walls. To call you into the golden tower. So naked is this green moon, and all the eyes in this town match it soon. They are too late when the straight roads twist around and break the chariots. Pushed by the militant stars. The drugs can’t keep you whipped like all the ladies with their perfumed scent. And all the poetry in your brain is all bruised up washing in the valleys of your skin. And baby. The gravedigger is hard to find on a midnight chase in the darkened aisles and alleys, filled with spit and sweat of disgruntled spirits, waiting for their grace. But their grace is the molten heat. Traversing from your fingers to the nerves that beat your last sane thought. Look at Rapunzel lose her strength when the wicked road cuts away all her hair. As she lays cold on a bathroom floor in ripped towels. The glow in her skin is the same as a struck match, and her body becomes as limp as the daisies. The diseases funnel together and drink her mentally, And all she has left is a dying car and enough money to buy a beer. Winding road, vivid and hedge apples scattered. Can’t drive. The wagons just splinter apart. And all is a little bark, and an endless cut from a broken heart. I am going to watch these visions materialize, from the fog from that hidden river from roads that never scattered past the point of just being glass and gravel. Now the band comes out to play. Clashing cymbals through the infernos of a damnation play. Watching the virgins and the Adams dance with the Scarlet dressed Sodom And Gomorrah revival. The cigarette ends and I try to walk away. Only to be picked up in a twilight maze. Walking to and from my groping vision. In the swinging shadows I see my whole life’s reflection. Winding roads to Felicity. Current bio for Fevers of the Mind’s David L O’Nan editor/writing contributor to blog. Poetry from David L O’Nan in the Famous Poetry Outlaws are Painting Walls and Whispers Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan Anthology available today! Available Now: Before I Turn Into Gold Inspired by Leonard Cohen Anthology by David L O’Nan & Contributors w/art by Geoffrey Wren
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