The Tempest

Tempest Dance
Christopher Bogart

Wild winds toss me across fields of high waving grass,
thrash my knees, my ankles, my calves,
slash me with the sharp edges of dark green spears.

Moonlight crafts pale shadows,
lunar landscapes swirl with memory’s ghosts.
Shades skim across blades of green.
The melodious bow sweep of violin strings, to
Play songs to me that were once so sweet,

Now so very violent,
tugging on my sinews,
snatching self-control.

Moods swirl music,
to dance to their tunes, their hysterical tunes,
once so sweet, so very sweet,

Now so very bitter,
They sweep over me
as shadow waves,
the dark murky blue-green of an island ocean,
raking me over smooth stones on the hard pebbled floor.

Under the midnight moon,
my gorge fills with bile,
my head, with visions of angels,
their pale familiar faces wrenched from distant memories,
dancing up against
the windows of my soul, these
diaphanous dolls in wispy white rags,
jigging and jerking,
flailing and fleeing with the sharp tugs of strings
held by some mad puppeteer, when

Suddenly, the wind scoops me up into its gentle hands,
its firm hands, my very life
held in the wells of pliant palms,
their airy fingers twirl me around and around like

A plaything,
a rag doll,
tossed on this tempest of confused and conflicting feeling.


I feel light, and
so very empty.
My life drains in ruby droplets, spattered to the

Frost of cold damp ground,
running down along the spines of high green grasses,
dripping into sticky red puddles,
reflecting the image of an uncaring moon.

Soon, an eerie silence descends
as the icy angels of the frosted night
force their fingers into open wounds,
open tombs,
too late to feel,
to soon to heal the
gashes in my soul.

Green grass becomes my sepulcher.
Brown ground out,
I wait for light to shatter night,
to force the winds to yield at last,
and if by some unerring chance,
to end the torture
of this tempest dance.