The SLAM! Green Room

pantoum: seduction
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I must obey the siren’s call . . .
‘we need you—please don’t leave us here.
we know you want to hold us all—
our pages fresh . . . our stories clear . . .

we need you, please don’t leave us here.
the worlds that make up our domain
our pages fresh, our stories clear,
will stagnate, lost if we remain.

the worlds that make up our domain
(more tales than one mind can compose)
will stagnate—lost—if we remain
in static, never changing rows.

more tales than one mind can compose . . .’
the books sing—waiting on the shelf
in static, never changing rows
and I just cannot help myself.

the books sing, waiting on the shelf,
‘we know you want to hold us all.’
and I just cannot help myself
I must obey the siren’s call . . .

***

15 line free verse: giving life to death
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he dances me
on the edge of forever
I never leave his arms
not when the music rushes past us
sweeping us into a whirl of spinning bodies
not when it slows to a swaying
pause

with each spin he leads me closer to the edge
but it crawls away into tomorrow
where time grows heavy
and the only thrill is to wonder
what adventures lie hidden
far below

someday we’ll dance in a great leap over the edge
and I’ll know