In Fairfax

What is the mask to wear today?
What would the peacock’s flowering tail say?

I am going back into town,
As you know, my time is my own.

All the stars were so bright last night
The city lights were not in sight.

I wake with nothing I can say
that will illuminate the day.

The Ford Falcon’s on its last legs,
a chicken that’s laid its last egg.

Or a peacock wearing the mask
to take over the poet’s task.

In town all the usual moves
checked off, I go to the movies.

Years past there was Gimme Shelter
I chose over Helter Skelter.

A stunned Mick Jagger watched the films
of what he’d done, where he came from

to this, the time had come to play
a deeper, lasting melody

that would put an end to senseless
destruction. Call it Wild Horses,

 Aphrodite watching a tape
of Dionysus eating grapes.

The ear knows more than the eye sees
when what you hear is what you see.

(5 June 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander