The Highwaymen Poem by Barry Middleton

the water is liquid glass
like the surreal surface
of a remote lonely moon

silver light dances
in the blue ripples

I am weightless at peace
released free in inner space

the sun is hot on my face
I close my eyes for silence
lime lemon tangerine
dancing citrus shadows
fill my simple universe
breathing fire colors
till I make my turn
swimming darker now
into royal purple night

these are their colors
the Florida Highwaymen
their roadside paintings
the colors of my world

poinciana and vivid palms
gesture to a grassy lawn
beneath pink lace clouds
in a perfect periwinkle sky

on a distant dark lagoon
a scarlet orange sunset
stains with nuclear flame
the slow ink black water

cotton candy pink cumulus
warn the ibis of evening rain

along a lost ebony river
the olive hued cypress
lends its somber color
to the hiding place
of a radiant egret

florida is a gallery
of outrageous color

I wish that my poetry
sold along her roads
as easily as paintings

then I might aspire
to be a Highwaymen
selling humble verse
the splash of sunrise
the silence of sunset
and all my dreaming

hopeful songs of love
hushed grieving odes
a prayer to the spring
all of life's landscapes
flowers birds heat
young women strolling
on an alabaster beach
the breathless turquoise
of the Gulf of Mexico
waiting to kiss the sun