Light, the Magician
by Odin Roark

I’ve been told…

In the expression-finder for language addicts,
buried in voluminous pages
there are letters living together
in synonym communes, a living wordscape
where a populous of lexiconic symbols portray light.

I’ve been made to believe…

Sleeping roughly as we do,
illumination gets off with its early morning rise,
chasing the night’s darkness from
a rich man’s penthouse,
and even the pitch-black density of an
under-bridge,
under-bakery,
underdom-basement palace
like the furnace room I call home.

But, back to the search…

There’s got to be another word-mashup
for the way light shadows itself,
moving slowly up the street,
its 6 AM shards spreading further by 8,
seeking out a complementary reflection.

Such forgivable narcissism,
pausing at a ruminate window,
a polished brass building plaque,
or before the come-hither flirtation
of a broken bottle’s glint.

And today…

There’s a pair of lost glasses
hopping a ride atop the street-cleaner’s wash,
surfing the gutter’s flow ‘til
some indigent like me picks them up,
slips them over my ears,
manna for my eyes,
sending me focused for the
42nd Street library.

Inside…

I curl up to a new array of cosmic particles
grounded on historical paper,
and enable my nothingness
to discover its somethingness.

He’s a magician, you know…
this Light.