Andrew Dabar

Another day
And soon, I'll be on my way
To a job that I hate
But I cannot be late
...

At a quarter past two
Moonlight so blue
Illumines her face
In slumbering grace
...

She looks at me from across the room, smiles, and looks away again. And then, it's business as usual for her. But my heart, it lifts and sinks. Like a curtain on the breeze. It lifts and sinks again and again.
____________
Andrew Dabar
...

She drops to her knees
And nobody sees
Unless there's a God
In the heavenlies
...

Innocent and unaware
Of all who've been swallowed there
Small children play at the mouth
Of a hungry behemoth
...

Sometimes it happens like a dream. Their lips had never met until that moment. Drawing her close, he kissed her carefully, thoughtfully, skillfully, his eyes wide open and locked with hers, brown on blue. They stood in the middle of a high meadow, knee-deep in wild flowers, before falling farther to the ground and further in love, their bodies completely hidden and exposed, both. The green grass, crushed by their weight, bled beneath them, staining their skin.

Yes, he remembers. Her hair was fragrant as clover spread all around; her skin salty and damp in the summer heat; her tongue and breath pink and sweet as mimosa; her fingers soft as a breeze before lifting his shirt like the hay wind. His head was buzzing—or maybe it was the bees swarming.
...

Thoughts of you fall silently
like flakes of snow throughout the day.
One by one and one on top of the other
they connect, and they stick, and they cover
...

She was leaving. He followed her with his eyes. But his mind got away: it raced around the corner and blocked the exit just in time. She walked into his outstretched arms—straight through his phantom arms—then disappeared just beyond a heavy door. The closing door. The slamming door. The ugly, gray door. The "I'll see you no more" door.

She never knew he was standing there. Breathless. Close enough to brush her hair and agitate her skirt with static blue sparks.
____________
...

She entered through one door
As he by another
Did cross a crowded floor
Strangers to each other
...

The reality of her re-entered my dreams
Reluctantly, permanently
For reasons of nobility
I dismissed her heart from me
...

This is how it happened:
You entered the room and a gentle breeze
Stirred a place nobody sees
Deep within the wilderness of my heart—
...

Starting with the sun
Count them one by one:
A star for every blessing
A blessing for every star
...

The beauty of Paris Mountain in the day. Viewed from a distance, she is the first blue wave of the Blue Ridge, a silent single line heading north, forming, building, eventually tilting, but never crashing or rushing back, a captivating still frame of swelling beauty, perpetually coming. The tide coming in—or maybe going out—one final breaker heading south, spilling, fizzing, ultimately disappearing into the Piedmont.

If not a wave, she is a work of art. A nubile goddess with an androgynous name. Her sensual body is as long and lithe as Aphrodite of Cnidus but Praxiteles is not responsible. God's Great Flood sculpted her with mathematical precision and placed her belly down, head resting on muscled arms, a sleeping nymph with legs and feet stretching all the way to the city's edge. That's the view from Caesar's Head and any man with eyes to see will find himself staring, maybe even blushing, or perhaps falling in love with this erotic woman.
...

Only minutes remain
In this the final day
With so much left to say
So
...

On a gray day
On a cloudy day
For a moment or two
A midmorning sun finally breaks through
...

SO WHAT if I love you?
What if I do?
And nobody knows it
Not even you?
...

Another wolf in disguise
A pair of glowing eyes
Oh, cute little boy
Small as a toy
...

He arrives home. The house is empty. But not really. Someone is there.

Dinner is on the stove, bubbling and boiling. Silver is placed upon the table, clinging and clanging. His wife turns to him, smiling. His children run to him, laughing. The family dog bounds to him, barking.
...

Sidewalk chalk. Hear the children talk. A mother's angry boyfriend is coming down the walk. He doesn't care. He's unaware. How innocent and sweet, the magic rainbow beneath his feet, carries him to and from a filthy street. But it doesn't matter. He hawks. He spits. The poor babies scatter. A brother. A sister. There's no such thing as happily ever after.

Swiftly, the years pass by. Cities, like concrete histograms, sit beneath a blood red sky. Ballistics, statistics, blame it on a gun. But what about the missing fathers and boyfriends on the run? Violent thugs. Gaming slugs, coping on prescription drugs. Government welfare. Lifelong daycare. Parents who are never there. At what cost? Another little boy. Another little Girl. Forever lost.
...

A little girl with chestnut brown hair and misty, blue lagoon eyes is staring at a door, which, to her developing mind is more of an entrance than an exit. Big people put little people here and forget about them for weeks, months, often years at a time. Alice in Daycareland. Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturday, down the rabbit hole, plunged into a strange place with locked doors, a labeled bottle and tears—a flood of tears—as parents rush away, always late for a very important date. These are her first memories.

A clock, meaningless to children her age moves to snack time. Then to story time. A trace of chocolate milk and cookie crumbs stick to silent, unanimated lips as she finally falls asleep on the napping mat. Clutching a pink blanket that smells like home, she anticipates the first parental touch of the day, so fast, so fleeting, faintly perfumed, when her tired, distracted mother tucks her in at night, the highlight of each and every day.
...