Instead Of Wings Poem by John Courtney

I am those boys who vanished
from old hands up above the shadows
leading paralyzed light to starve
on oblivious sidewalk cities
that remastered civilization
to invent the reflection
of a simpler man's pain
so obviously poured
from the glass
of a satisfied ghost

those boys who escaped
their father's painted mirror
finding no honor in discovering
silver on the shores
of a triangle

those boys who hid
down in the altered ego
reuniting lightning with bones
still drumming from caves
meant to shelter earthly eyes
in the skulls of friends
where rats got paid
at the one life only
sold out silence.

I am those boys who fled
their cups overflowing
in the streets made of the god
who made mountains to push
raw feathers into a sorry man's sea
so deceitfully trained
by the veins of a beautiful leaf

those boys who left
their mother's lipstick burning
on their cheeks knowing
there would be no other
shade of blood rich enough
to fool clock hands
knocking on the door
of a circle

those boys who ran
home from school with me
to help lower dark pianos
onto fields where we played
the games in my mouth
to tear the sky from our minds.

I am those boys who died
back in the days
of all this night.