The Breath of Sleeping Boys

Something is about to happen.

Legs are crossed fingers.

A cup falls from its handle.
A wall crumbles into the road
under the weight of a flower bed.

In their dreams
something is about to happen.

Saved and damned, saved and damned -
the breath of sleeping boys.

One wave breaks, another inhales
and something is about to happen.

Shrubbery trembles, blatantly.

November the 5th in Lilliput Road.
The introvert is out of its lid,
reads and repeats the word BANG

until the tarmac sky translates
madness back into stars, a life
into mute, mouse-like slippers.

Something is about to happen. Sh.

Here is the sound (let is pass)
of young blades, wading through grass.

The town-s terrarium anticipates
that something is about to happen.

The wind adjusts its volume.

Peace carries a wicker basket.
Her dress takes in the new breeze.

With each step she's moving out,
stork on her heels, almost in flight.

Something is about to happen.

Winged eyes in a blameless dark
beat inside their hemispheres.
Their lashes are feathers dipped in oil.

Deeper than ocean beds, their dreams
rebuild Atlantis in domed air.

Saved and damned, saved and damned -
the breath of sleeping boys.

from The Brittle Sea: New & Selected Poems (see Books page)
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