Dreamin' on a Bench with Death (Poem)

My day dawned crisp. Frigid.

The type of day where tiny curled fingers of frost crawl down your neck,

yet flee in the face of weak sunshine like tasteless frosting on a cake.

My walk brought me to a small bench,

where a tired form sat hunched like a crooked branch after a storm.

"Excuse me, sir, may I sit beside you?"

A slight, cautious and weary nod bent its way downward in assent,

though I drew no comfort from a hooded face that gave off no breath.

My own breath drifted out molasses-slow from partially parted lips,

a reminder that the man beside me is either

a stranger to death

or its master.

Either way curiosity overcame me,

and I sat down just as the sun cracked its yoke over streaks of thinning gray.

Sitting silently is not my forte,

and shortly, I began to tell him a story

while watching wisps of my breath whirl happily away from our silent bench.

"I awoke hours ago under the strain of a nightmare," I whispered, scared to disturb his reverie,

yet emboldened by warmth seeping into my blood like a stream finding dry rock,

"and opened my eyes in hopes the vision would fade.

I had been running through a forest,

eyes dinner-plate large in terror,

a shade chasing me in rapid, strong strokes.

I knew for certain what I had stolen was precious,

far beyond diamond and gem value,

yet couldn't place what exactly it was that I held gripped,

bone-white with strain..."

His hand suddenly twitched, at once slow, at once faster than anything I'd seen

and an odor from his movement caught me strongly between my eyes

rocking me backwards, pressing tightly against the  bench.

I caught my breath and continued, not knowing what else to do.

"I lost speed, and hope followed soon after,

tearing at my lungs begging for a pause,

begging for surrender.

Surrounded by trunks thick as fear

and branches like mason's arms hammered with strength,

I turned to face my pursuer.

I saw a film rising up around the darkened glade,

triumphant, inky..."

"It was I." A sound like a clock hissing the seconds further into the day.

Stunned, I jumped off the bench, having lulled myself into peace

forgetting my breathless companion

who now followed his statement with a turn,

cloaked arm reaching out for me,

his once crooked frame straightening quickly.

"I have caught up with you. After all, there is no escape

for your friends have all found my double, my brother,

and now it is your time."

"No, impossible, impossible! You gave me extra, you promised me more!

scrabbling from where I had fallen,

blood and pebble mixing under the skin of my palm,

backing away terrified on hands in knees,

even as he lunged downwards,

wrapping me in a cloak of darkness,

subduing sunshine

submerging day into a night

where all I heard was the laughter of one who has never lost.

Part II

Some quote there is another type of day,

one where the man leans back comfortably,

left arm resting on cracked paint,

the right feeling a soft lapel, face painted in a smile

five oceans wide,

beckoning me to sit, to join.

I notice first he is not bent.

He is not an old man clutching a last days cane

nor a soothing fog that upon entering turns poisonous,

but is laughing!

The laughter rolls across hills like a low boom,

a cannon boom without the blood that follows

and I cannot help but join him,

curious about his mirth.

"Join, join," he chuckles,  barely able to conceal more laughter bubbling up,

"tell me a story that will pass the time."

In answer I pull out fresh fruit from my jacket,

that lies now discarded with sunshine like warm bread

filling the cracks of an evening receding quickly in disgust.

Offering a piece to him,

I tempt a look into his face

only to see planets, stars, trees and dust swirling in a cornucopia

where in the center I stand,

surrounded by noise, surrounded by hunger, surrounded by hurt and pain.

In the last moment of this vision I see myself fall on knees,

soaked in tears, hands falling to ground.

"I caught you. I healed you. I held you in my arms." Voice a mix of harp and morning mist.

Shaken out of this reverie,

the seams of my body begin to glow,

having not seen in my thought's fog

that I held his hand long after handing him fruit,

fingers grasping tightly to a whirling world.

"Let's eat," I whisper,

to the sound of cannons booming, rolling and erasing sadness.