Between What's Black And White (2pm 12/26/07) Poem by David Nelson Bradsher

The iron-colored skies present
their plushy soft-tops with the swirled
depictions of a world
that match the furrowed firmament.

The wind that shakes the branches rattles
the stillness of a thicker day,
filling the air with gray
like cannon-smoke from absent battles.

The gray is kindly to confine
a poet (with a narrowed brain)
in winter—dark with rain—
to piece the parts of every line

with words the churning skies endowed
by misting out the smoother view
of any glimpse of blue
with grayness and a frowning cloud.