Alexander Downie Poems

Your latest haircut denotes your status and style,
a thick velvet rope lifting makes your false smile.
Tattooed arms state, crazy child like charms,
draped laminate passes, a vacant call to arms.
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Real Men cry for others, real men love their Mothers.
Real men stand for right, real men walk from a needless fight.
Real men live with respect, real men ponder and reflect.
Real men say what they mean, real men reject the obscene.
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My head spins like a pirouetting ballet dancer
My wraith laments under a burden of piquant turmoil
My days are faltered and my sable minutes lay shattered and crushed
My masquerade contorts to whisperings of enraptured passions and trepidation
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When the volume subsides and the last word is silence,
I still believe in love.
When the pressure in my head subsides and my breathing shallows,
what else remains?
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A pretty black girl in Chicago takes a stray bullet to the back,
another Mother standing beside a dark grave, while white America arms.
A black boy shot in the face getting groceries for his waiting Mom,
a congress so dumb white blind, they can't see this as wrong!
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Are you ok, you ask the wrong person,
it is not her that sits all alone.
Are you ok, who is the victim,
who destroyed a loving home.
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You want to be a violin player but a cello is more your style,
an LA lady with a heart lost in France, turning heads with just a smile.
You want to dance flamenco but you rock too much to care,
kick off stilettos on a beach, turn it up and get sand in your hair.
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The King and I we sat down, he'd grown oh so tired of wearing his crown.
He threw of his robes, he looked me in the eye, raised his face to the rain and started to cry.
He kicked off shoes from manicured feet, his regal body crumpled like freshly cut wheat.
His jewels scattered around a marble floor, a name written boldly in future folklore.
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He walks over fallen timber to find the high point on the hill,
placing feet on dry bark and avoiding damp moss in the dark.
His breath spits misty splinters of ice in the cold night air,
and his taught chest raises with fierce, effort and expectation.
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After the first scream she lays the child upon her sweat covered breast,
they breath in time, a journey on a winding new road with no end.
Through ripped knees, ferocious fevers and torn hearts her scent never alters,
soothing spectres on fearful nights, smiling through dark days, an apron for a shield.
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