The Tall Man (Poem)

Tophat
Charcoal matte
A deceptively deep stillness
And dark grey
When he turns to catch your eye
And sunlight hits just right

Red scarlet
Enchanted ribbon wrapped around
Above a jetting rim
Caressing heavy eyes
Far too gentle to be believed

A dark mustache adorns his neatly framed
And ever-so convincing
Smile
With slick black sleeves that lead to calloused hands
Hardened fingertips
From trying to hold on

Grasping frantically
At times
From hot air balloons

Grasping frantically
Before
Uncertain weather heartlessly whisks him away

Now

Carnivals closing
Lights once lighting paths of hopeful lovers
Fading slowly
Into whatever darkness hides behind bright stars
Backdrop expressing
What foreground never could achieve

Beauty
And the Devil

Not that different after all
Ensnared like dying beasts
Between normality

In the details

That’s where we see
We’ll see them walking hand in hand under running moonlight
Like faucets now neglected
Spilling over
Onto you and me
Where we
Like starving children
Huddle underneath
In hopes of stealing just a taste of what we need

We need
Love

The carnival reflects like fine blue sand against the jagged sky
Sleeping bodies
Populate the grounds
In brightly painted caravans

Yellows
Blues
And greens

Concealing
What secretly you know to be
Hiding underneath

Tophat on the table
Next to tiny beds
Where the mustached man prepare to sleep
On beds that squeak
Each time they get awoken
From their own perpetually ironic sleep

Calloused hands rub weathered eyes
Before pushing gently off the shore of this heavy land of wakefulness

In dreams
We see

We read along with forefingers
As not to lose our place
With stories, each transpiring before us
Each word finds place
Even if it has no meaning

The mustached man
Reveals his scene like salesmen who unravel products brightly glimmering
A heart
Perched between the slits of sky unseen

Weathered balloons
Rising
Floating
Oh so quietly
Unintentionally
All sound turns around him
To dimming static
Before it disappears

Disappearing

Yeah

That’s exactly what he’s doing