the politics of dancing redux

why is the past the past?

paradise from which i have been cast

 

why can’t i be on the shore

with nothing more

than my youth

 

no search for truth

just ocean tides

that would hide

in the black of night

 

while we sat by the firelight

not caring that we sipped some sand

each time we took a drink of jack

straight out of the bottle

 

the only hopeful expectation

that flesh would find flesh

before it was time to take her home

 

would i have hated the older version of me

walking late night los angeles streets

since last november

only to discover one cannot be a nihilist

 

not really

 

eyes without a face

drifts from the speakers of a clothing store

i stop and want nothing more

then to stop being me

 

stop time

go back

never write a rhyme

 

never have spent the winter

soaked in incessant rain

a metaphor for existential pain

singing adele’s

“set fire to the rain”

 

instead i would have become a dancer

moving to the modern music

would have been my answer

 

and the way that one can feel when one dances

is all my suitcase would need

 

in the 80s

i would have danced with myself

in the 90s

i would have been vogue

last decade

i would have just danced

and now

i would dance like there is no tomorrow

 

instead of searching for happiness

in every word on every page

i would have been illiterate

with a dancer’s body

 

and when you tried to talk about meaning

i would have always put on a dance tune

and moved among the monuments and the ruins

without a care for their symbolism

and if necessary i would have taken your hand

helped you to understand

that happiness can’t be planned

safe or secure

the only thing that is pure

is the sweat that saturates the dancer

 

the feeling is the answer

extended versions are not a perversion

just keep dancing

 

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