Original Poetry Fan Fiction ❯ Joshua W. Circlebrain ❯ Born a Magnet ( Chapter 2 )

Joshua W. Circlebrain, born a magnet

In the month of maidens and transitions

The loudest wordless proclamation

and divine right valence-dictorian

The house rattled the day he was born

Window frames jumping to give tribute

To he who would bring so much traffic to their panes

And from his footsteps came color

And through his mind a stepladder to higher places

And from his eyes came life and youth

As bright as music and as quiet as sunlight

But, jealous, the gods took the blue and red and yellow

Leaving the generator of hue without any power to view

That which he had painted

Sitting across from me in a stunted orange chair

In a morning of my memory too small to fill a glass

Remembering and asking one question to last a lifetime

Weighting only a penny and costing a Tomatebakken

Josh, a skinny stripe on the wall of my childhood

A cloud obscured by the lightning of my friends

And thoughts and health and gender

Leading lives as if we had arranged a meeting before life

And asked each other our names and noted our colors

Then, with a smile and an abuse, agreed

In alternating moods of grief and relief

To turn and take roads and never again meet

Under punishment of indifference

As sharp and alert as a lance

The fox ripped from the wolf

And the wolf resenting the fox

Reynard, triumphing in life after life

Over the bedeviled old devil hound

And slinging Isengrim’s bones to the ground

But I digress to the future, neglecting the past

That has come to rest like a needle in my throat

Back when Joshua was only a person

And not a concept or icon or scar on my right leg

And not a pair of electric blue thoughts

And not a catalyst for madness

And not the earth circled by the moon

And not a shade of my paper

But a growing sprout in my garden row

And a thing yet to come

Not a bulla in my brain

Or assignment to fail

Or elusive, striking, bone deep pain

Yes, when it was safe to sit beside your infatuation

And hear the Cat in the Hat rhyme and scheme