Love in the ’90’s

Today the world is a disco ball
with glitter pyrotechnics
dappling the sunlit road
and all the trees are money trees,
and all the potholes pots of gold.

The earth is strumming its Carlos
Alomar fat bass riffs under the snow
and the cardinals all fight for the limelight
of the sun’s pulsing paisley fractal smile.

Do you remember late nights in Brooklyn
with the radio on The Quiet Storm,
and the A train humming me to sleep?
Do you remember streets alive with music—
sidewalks cushioned with oversized dreams,
and Velvet Underground purple haze
wafting from subway steam shafts
as we levitated off the asphalt
in our vinyl platform shoes?

Do you remember the days
when technology was an ornament
and hardware shook hands,
the ether was awakening
in a hybrid of matter and energy,
and infinity was within?
Well, today I’m a time traveler,
and even though my problems
fill the sink with last night’s dishes,
I’m going to dance anyway.

Today I’m a galaxy
far from other galaxies,
and equal in my capacity for life.
I’m a spinning ball of light,
dancing within the dark matter
of my own inner space.

I’m dancing to the stereo today,
to the music of spheres
trapped in the time grooves
of holographic flying saucers
from tunnels and raves—

the shutters of my soul swing open,
and I’m trusting in this breeze
that blows through all my doors—

I’m twenty-one again today
and drunk on the speed of life
because I’m finally legal—
I’m recycling my soul, like
all those snowed-in years
were all just a dream,
all those white lines in the sand
blown away, and I’m flying
like a makeshift paper airplane
into the tweaked-out
sakura sunrise—
I’m letting the light in today
like a slow burn body melt
creeping into my blue toes
and up through my bones

I’m letting this arthritic heart
beat its narrow cage open
and the meatspace of my marrow
be blown out by the rhythm
that was vamping on mute
in me all along
April showers bring May flowers
and a rainstorm’s about to come down—
there are more fingers and tongues
awakening with more brainstorms
than even the sky can count,
all this green I don’t even know
how to spend—
so many triangular things
pushing upward
through all the cracks—
more third eyes and eyelashes
than even the sun can page,
blinking and awakening
to all this heavenly light.
I can’t contain all this energy.
I’m running on empty,
and there’s too much blooming
at once—

there’s no room for irony
in this new reality:
this ache in my bones
is just the feeling of my soul
crash landing in the body,
leaving rainbow skid marks
with the impact of life.

All I want is a dance floor
and a few hours alone with my shadow
so I can shape something big today
for the world

© Psyche Marks 2017