Love Song For the Drummer by Dot Antoniades

He was chocolatemahoganybrownbrickred
several shades of Indian earth blended
no lines
creaseless
Symmetry danced in his veins
my inner sonata silenced
I became 1 movement
fluid
blushing beige at the thought of him in his boyhood
palms down
panting the vulnerability out of me
vulgar ability I have
to fantasize myself into his country
without knowing anything except
percussion turns me on
But it wasn’t about him
it was the song
La musica beating me ceaseless
senseless

I am young
so young
yet
have old eyes
a stolen soul
I steal souls
but viscerally speaking
my tummy doesn’t tumblesaul when I see him
But when I hear him
my spirit sambas uncontrollably
as if La Mariachi
were plucking steel
string
sinews inside me
Barely breathing
percussion rushing thru me
I could see nothing
I was surrounded by sound
panties stained a deeper shade of clay
as the rhythm made its home between my legs
hatching sunsets
a warmth only I was aware of

His spirit:  soft blunted blade
entering through my exit
I thought I had been spade
reinvented manmade
Music
I want you to lay
in the soft shell cave of my thighs
fill the echoes
make me come legato
because my poems have been plosive
too macho
Raise me 12 notes higher
sweaty palms ride me bareback
give phoenix her flames back
fan the silent valley under her wings
let her sing
until they cut out her tongue
or
the nightingale gets jealous
Wake Calliope
There’s salsa on the glossy cedar dance floor
now that I’ve drank the last drop I want more

I want to know
how bodies moved
in the first shadow of night
before the lights came on
and we saw
and were shamed
cos we felt so good
for our own sake
I want musica keeping my shoulders strong
womb thumping birth of bass
immaculate
no blueprint
to the submission into mass movement
I do not want to merely reflect
He was musician
I was nothing but me listening
trying to tear the atmosphere desperately
because gravity distracts me
keeps me from myself
I swore his eyes were not jewels.
They were dark
rich like chocolate
bigger than Guatemala
They knew things I wanted to know

That night I believed
I believed
Religion escaped me
faith became me
Alone
I dropped to my knees
humbled
and samba’d myself to sleep


© 1999 Dot Antoniades.