Alexander Downie Poems

Your latest haircut denotes your status and style,
a thick velvet rope lifting makes your false smile.
Tattooed arms state, crazy child like charms,
draped laminate passes, a vacant call to arms.
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Real Men cry for others, real men love their Mothers.
Real men stand for right, real men walk from a needless fight.
Real men live with respect, real men ponder and reflect.
Real men say what they mean, real men reject the obscene.
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My head spins like a pirouetting ballet dancer
My wraith laments under a burden of piquant turmoil
My days are faltered and my sable minutes lay shattered and crushed
My masquerade contorts to whisperings of enraptured passions and trepidation
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When the volume subsides and the last word is silence,
I still believe in love.
When the pressure in my head subsides and my breathing shallows,
what else remains?
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A pretty black girl in Chicago takes a stray bullet to the back,
another Mother standing beside a dark grave, while white America arms.
A black boy shot in the face getting groceries for his waiting Mom,
a congress so dumb white blind, they can't see this as wrong!
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Are you ok, you ask the wrong person,
it is not her that sits all alone.
Are you ok, who is the victim,
who destroyed a loving home.
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After the first scream she lays the child upon her sweat covered breast,
they breath in time, a journey on a winding new road with no end.
Through ripped knees, ferocious fevers and torn hearts her scent never alters,
soothing spectres on fearful nights, smiling through dark days, an apron for a shield.
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He walks over fallen timber to find the high point on the hill,
placing feet on dry bark and avoiding damp moss in the dark.
His breath spits misty splinters of ice in the cold night air,
and his taught chest raises with fierce, effort and expectation.
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With my body draped as a passive gift,
I give you my flesh in which to scribe.
All my yearns are lost in the cuts and pain,
all my visions blurred in this moment of sanctity.
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Me and my pony hooked up on the Chicago Eastside and went for a ride,
we grabbed a corndog in Springfield and pulled our way on to Route 66.
In Oklahoma we sat with an Indian chief, watching movies while lovers kissed,
and turned a collar to a Cadillac ranch in Amarillo, blue lips and fresh Texas snow.
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