Ode To The Ballerina Poem by Christopher R. Kennedy

Somber flames dance on their wicks
Which are coated with ashen ice
They bend their legs and
Tug on the blanketed dusk just as the
Gypsy dancers instructed them to do
Only on the evenings of the silkiest sunsets

His wooden face bathed in milky light
That paints the rippling contours of his cavernous cheeks
With yellow strokes from Monet’s impressionist brush
Tears fall from his face to kiss the floor
And Valencia roses grow where they land while the
Vintage clocks on the wall blink away their insomnia

A girl of white marble lies in an ocean of yellow
Grass below the whispering window panes
A ballerina’s shoes blush on her cold feet
The breeze which tastes of dead leaves runs its fingers through her hair
A half-forgotten smile plays
Upon her chapped, blueberry lips

Faraway, in the parish’s Elysian garden
The parson picks tomatoes with the
Tips of his rosy fingers that leaf through pages of the Bible
And stroke the names of Hebrew kings
He tastes death on the bitter wind and chants a
Psalm to the clouds of purple dragons in the twilight

The revolutionary crumples against the salty concrete wall
His florescent fingers feel the hole in his side
With all the doubt of Thomas’ touch
His soul creeps out of his mouth like cigarette smoke
As corpses bow to the wall beside him
The firing squad lowers their shivering rifles

Cannon fire makes cracks in the night sky
Soldiers march with their helmets hiding their faces
Buildings are injured horses that drift to the ground
Children shut their eyes and hum nursery rhymes
And out of the flames twirls a lost ballerina
Dancing off into the heavens