VOLUME 9 TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIBRA MOON

Saw you playing the saxophone
a scatter of unclear solos
endless deliberation of notes
that never once got you into bed.

You gave your all, your heart
on too many star-stud nights
and slept on a dreadful couch,
the sudden sun your only light.

A girl removed her pale corsage
and dropped it down the bell of your horn,
her sad lips trembling as she nodded
make believe smiles and desiring eyes,

a place that doesn’t know you now
your first rock heaven island sea hell
the stones of you washed more blue
than fair weather wrings true;

a dead flower, shred of being
symbol of the many blows withstood
pursuing old dreams that rose from new
the road of ruin goes down the woodside.

Drinking all the wench's songs
in mystery keys or the devil's mode
the last breath died away undone
before the salt morning echoed.

Pitch-black with rounds of despair
you fell home wet with wildness,
reed play afternoons, escaping
from the air-tight snake of you,

uncoiled best of you
the make and model wand of you
the riff the horn sang filled
the breast of every noon with you.

No glance was fond enough
though wonders dimmed the mold of you
the bare fanged dragon making
righteous noises out of hip tunes

and cries the color of sex, the willful
waver of round replies to wander in
a scanted range of nagging hopes
refilled when ever surrender comes.

A slanted moon pan saw you play on deck
a scatter of heartbeat, all-night benders
endless weighing of featherbed notes
that never once got you what you wanted;

playing your all, your soul, the saxophone,
so many nights attempting fungicide
asleep on moldy couches, just a case
of sudden sun, outstretched alongside.

©Jimmy Warner Design, 2001