*“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew.”  

Surrealistic Mardi Gras

We found each other in a hall of lights
and electronic sounds, where
others had come
to lose themselves.

I was a woman who yearned
for my youth,
while you were a man
with none worth remembering:
Two sad leftovers from
days long past, searching for
our missing parts.

So we moved in slow motion
through a mannequin crowd, and
spun our dreams like
cotton candy,
then sealed our bond
in the Tunnel Of Love.
We savored each other like
corn on the cob,
sucking the juice, and gnawing
the kernels, licking the sweetness
from each others’ lips.

The calliope played a
premonishing tune;
The gray horse I mounted was
festooned with ribbons that
wrapped all about me as
the carousel turned, and bound
me in place, so high
in the air.

We slowed to a stop, and your
White steed was down.

Venturing out to the seamier
side, shows so macabre
beckoned us to partake.
Siamese twin dancers that
hypnotized; a magician within
made them vanish before you,
into smoke that became
a vile yellow fog.
When you gagged for
air, the fat lady found you,
offering solace in
her ample bosom.

Unyielding, repulsed, you went
To the weaver, who wove you a
dream, with fragile glass threads.
A python encircling a raven-haired
lady went crazy and choked all
the life from her body.
It touched in me a chord that made
my skin crawl, and chilled me
to think of a snake
wrapped around me.

Rain began falling with such a vengeance;
lightning struck all the carnival lights,
exploding sharp fragments in
colors that stung.

We could only find refuge in
the great hall of mirrors,
staring sadly at images
we’d never seen.

©1988, Olivia Wilder -All rights reserved.

“A spider lives inside my head
Who weaves a strange and wondrous web
Of silken threads and silver strings
To catch all sorts of flying things,
Like crumbs of thought and bits of smiles
And specks of dried-up tears,
And dust of dreams that catch and cling
For years and years and years . . .”  

(* excerpted from “Every Thing On It,”  © 2011, Shel Silverstein)