“New Shoes.”

Just after Christmas, I received a lovely gift of new dress shoes from someone I love. This poem is, in part, in light of this wonderful present.

—

New Shoes

Some nights, I dance to Winwood in new shoes –

New shoes from Amazon, all black and snug –

And spiral out in rounded pirouettes

To feel the higher love of which he sings.

On other nights, I’m paralyzed in place,

Lost in a logic loop of lissome lies,

Of thoughts too tensile for their own damned good,

Too bright, too ready to collapse and curve.

My new dress shoes are warm and onyx-black,

And they come on and off with craftsman’s ease.

I wish that all my thoughts turned out the same,

But they cannot sit still. They don’t all shine,

And can’t all ferry me from place to place.

My thoughts are varied in their hue and cry:

Some thoughts will tumble joyful, live, and green

Onto the waiting page, like falling dice;

Some thoughts burn red with fury’s crimson flames,

Reducing all soft sophistries to ash;

And many falling thoughts are blue and grey

Like cataracts of cool consternation,

Like windswept coastlines after autumn rain.

The clearest thing that lays each thought to rest

Is silence, punctuated by bright song:

The fifteen-minute taper of my prayer

Will burn into the embers of the night

As jagged Gibsons, keyboards, and taut snares

Remind me who I am and how I feel.

The Mobius strip immobilizing me

Will break, will snap like thinning rubber bands,

Before the banshee wail of Eighties punk,

The spinning disco balls of Nineties pop.

When I return from stasis, I will feel

The warmth of Winwood’s voice like summer sun,

The taste of bold Brazilian coffee, and

A lover’s fragrance through an open door.