The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke
The way the back leant curving into space
The dance and danger both are thus evoked

Like a play, a drama, fire and smoke
A dance performed so swiftly and with grace
The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke

The heavy bull is pounding,is provoked.
A threat, a man,  intrudes into his space
The dance and danger both are still evoked

See, the  matador throws out his cloak
A   dash of black, and here we see his face
The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke

The mind needs just a hint to  see the whole
We fill the present with our past distaste
The dance and danger, mirroring dark smoke

 Acting both dramatic and displaced 

The artist may still love what she forsakes 

The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke 

he dance and danger ,life and death evoked

 

The sun leapt like a   glamorous leopard
Crashing  through the mysteries of the  clouds
The  frost and icy air both  shaken,shattered

The Lord to children  seems  like  a good shepherd
King David writes his poetry profound
The sun leapt like a  god, a graceful leopard

Faith  grown  in the dark is what will matter
Belief that love may rise or may descend
Our frost and icy ways are  shaken,shattered

As  the poet’s bruised heart was knocked and battered
God did not console, he was no friend
But a majestic and  devouring  golden leopard

How locked his heart,how might was done and flattered
On his knees he prayed with  head down, bowed
His frost and icy ways were  shaken,shattered

 

And thus it is salvation is endowed
With fearsome beasts, with golden lions proud
The Son of God, a jewelled ,flying leopard,
In the   Arctic air,  a symbol of our rapture

 

To write a poem I dreamed an undreamed dream
The woods in France deformed by dead young men
A nightmare complex in its perplexed themes

In our dream the narrative has means
To make those killed communicate again
To write a poem I dream an undreamed dream

Later, in another war, trains steam
To take the “insect” Jew, no longer “man.”
A nightmare simple in its evil themes

The little pearls we half see, as we scheme
The evasions we ignored but which remained.
We read a poem, we dream an undreamed dream

Who we are and who we might have been
At 4 am in isolated pain
The Nightmare Complex, come to share your screams

Can any see the world as poets aimed
To recreate the moment where we change?
To write a poem embodies sufferers’ dreams
Nightmares dark and piercing,mobs that maim