Duality

flowers are windows
for echoes in your rooms,
electric box crystallizes colors
while my silhouette breathes the sunlight;
child, it was raining when you laughed
at the way he said things,
you failed to heed the thunder

the bars glisten like rain
before your eyes swollen with storm;
could care less about birds in the dark,
veins expose clenched fists
for kingdoms past reach

no one cries tears, they cry sand
when a statue falls;
cars glide but who can see
when only headlights know
the way without street lamps

a cat stares,
i return the gaze of the present;
people comb their hair, talk of tomorrow,
stack words like toy blocks;
look at their wars
which never touched your rain,
they relive other moments
than the ones your planned

you step on the linoleum
cracked like veins, faces sleep
on the floor, eyes won't close,
water whispers from a faucet,
someone sings,
the rest smile or dream in the dust,
naked light bulb glows the scene electric

turtleneck sweater reaches
to choke a lonely woman,
eyes dart like ice in silence
while my face kneels to pray;
less than the wind left to say,
no one but you heard your door close

you drink a glass of water,
watch yourself smoke in the mirror
write his name in the dust on the sill,
sing silent to the cat,
watch the shadows grow east,
nothing to keep the why
from choking in your throat

empty the ashes
from the ashtray and your mind;
the plates are empty of food,
telephone empty of calls,
you're empty of ideas to continue
but emptier of reasons to stop

take off your eyelids and sing patty cake
to the silence and the cigarette,
watch your socks on television,
wash your dishes over a microphone,
light switch on for no reason,
decks of cards deals itself on the table

i see a parade
with vampires, clowns, and workers
laughing madly in the sun;
a car stops at the light,
ignores my thumb, stares at my beard,
i stare from the cold into cold
captured between tinted windows,
they drive away, remain
a picture printed in my mind

the photographer places you
in front of the lens to make more room
in his eyes for less of you;
outside the wind blows leaves,
cards, and my visions against your memory