what lurks

Isn't it strictly amazing
how conversations go?
A rhythm of creatures
leaning into soft gossip.

Beneath the smiling, civilizing pauses
and flourishes at a chance encounter,
something else, peculiar is burning.

Behind doors and walls at night other forms
slink out, eyes darting. A simmering shame
in being wild but caged into bounded roles.
No vases are flung and shattered, just quiet
plastic flowers mocking half-real inhabitants.

But on the street or in a coffee-addled cafe,
two people begin to look odd, blithely prattling.
So many things bouncing through the alphabet.
Last night's surreal sleep forgotten or banished.
Yes...sometimes you can see straight through
the apparent, see right across the borderland.
The light quivers and shapes begin to change.
Conversants are now in a fantastical setting,
even more bizarre since they have no clue
they are going arboreal, hauled up on vines,
purple glowing vines lifting them to foliage.

If you look really hard enough,
you might see culture unmasked.
What is right before your eyes
changes into vivid psychedelia --
strange apes lisping drunken words
up in the branches of Marula trees.


Copyright 2011 -- Tim Buck