Drugs

I hide under the house

And paint my face dead

Like the Butoh

Embalmed whites, greys, blues and blacks.

I can hear the local subways slithering

Underneath the concrete of the basement floor

Much like the drugs in my veins

As I apply layer upon layer

Of dust and cream

And pencil from your make up bag.

There is a chill in the air

Under the house

My breath reaching out of me

In clouds.

Candles burn

Amidst the smoke of incense

Flickering cinema imagery

Of our body’s shadows and movements

On the walls

Across your paintings on easels

And sparse furniture.

We dance barefoot and naked

Upon a red tattered rug.

We perform our incantations

Amidst the black chorus echoes

Of this flame lit chamber.

I gracefully move my arms

In circular gestures

And like a blind man’s cane

So moves my foot.

We dance slow like warm liquid

In a browning spoon

Harmonious.

Our own poor man’s interpretive Butoh dance

Contains all of the charm and wonder

Of a child’s first music box

Slow and beautiful

Round and round

Up and down.

My frail silhouette is moving

On all four walls

Simultaneously

While the shadows of you are smaller

And less terrifying.

My skin is a bluish white

Almost the color of my breath

Exhumed in the smoke

Of the candles.

The voice that lets out of me

Is no longer physical

But comes from

The industry inside

The mechanical heart

The forged steel of my soul.

And the drugs take over

As we cast spells

And move about

Like spiders playing Twister...

Our dance evolves

Naturally and spontaneously

Without any rehearsal

Or premeditation.

We are there

Amongst the rhythms in our heads

Amongst the erotic glow of candles

The dragon plumes of incense

The pulse of the night

Is our metronome.

We are our own audience

Elevated from our bodies

Dangerously high and attached only by

Dim blurry umbilicals.

Our ghosts curl up together and watch

As the spectacle unfolds.

Like the true Butoh

We are enraptured by

Both the beauty and the horror

The ugliness and the infantile

The majestic and the sublime.

The subways rattle through our veins

Clickety clack.