Random Acts of Poetry

Random Acts of Poetry

Just Before

Dawn was rich:
a pageant of burning clouds,
like the rubies of a sultan,
dribbled from a golden jar.

Not car horns that morning,
but flutists midwifing
the sun-up
with auspicious trills.

The neighbor's pool
was a flashing ocean, blue as tourmaline,
and later, the mailman was a priest
bringing absolution, not bills.

Everyone I met
glowed like phosphorous
and their words were sweet
as syrup.

I knew I was coming down,
the fever about to take me,
my head already floating
two feet above my body.

But I took the morning’s blaze
as a fleeting gift,
a sugar-frosted illusion,
my world transformed

by the gorgeous mouth of hell,
a counterfeit of paradise.