Notes - Another poem for my final project for the "Whitman's
Children" class. This poem was supposed to exercise the use
of enjambed, duplicitous lines.
This is about Kestrel, an entity that has been appearing in
my dreams since I was four.

--

 A sooty field feathered
With broken spines of corn
Strung rows of candy tents and people
I think I am the only one not
smiling - He looks at me
Through the song and dance
And I see that I am wrong

He has taken many
forms, the shape of a ghost
A malevolent angel
A chandelier over stairs like lava
Playing music as twisted as the
Black iron bars that hold it up
Styrofoam hands closing over my throat

I fended him off with a pen
Gave him a shape I could
recognize - he took the sword
I gave him and he ran me through
Lucidity did not startle him

Then one day I made him
smile.

He stands next to me, black coat
flapping in the foul wind, cloudy hair
blinding one eye. He spoke to me
Untangling the iron bars so I could
Understand

We both looked at the boiling neon sky
unwinding at the horizon
He turned and said
"This has to stop."