RED MUSE POEMS  

By David Eide  

Redness in shadows/

living because the sun is a prayer:
"Release me into wide skies
Release me into the water-will of you."

She wants the Africa of her dreams
in haunting eyes/ she wants the Queen of
herself to lounge in blue, succulent afternoons
hanging heavy with mangos and blood-red bananas
in the boat that will bring her home.

In a sea-glide through red roses and sweet apples 
that hang white from forbidden trees. The sea is dewy,
yellow and tawny girls sleep
                           in the silt 

of unappreciated days.

Armies of unappreciated days climb the
sheer battlefield of her moon-like skin. Poems are
knit for her like sails from brown hands. They smoke
without sound along waters hungry for its green rays. 
They thread the needle with unerring skill.
Poems are  carved from the belly of the poet/ browned in the southern latitude of his
                  heart. 


Sadness kneels at the edge of the Earth.
Play dances a red fandango in the air.



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