An original poem.

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Burning giraffes
streak across an orange sky
as the sun sinks below the sands
of an endless desert.
This is the dry sea
that man had to cross
to get to the rivers of Eden.
This is the bottom of the world,
where fire collects
in the sand.
When the sun is yellow and overhead
the ocean becomes glass,
waiting to be shaped by a demigod
who will never come again.
Only his skeleton remains,
near the tree that burns every year,
and grows during the day of rain.

The sky becomes red,
as zebras and lions run into the night.
This is the unknown life,
landscapes are already painted
on three dimensional surfaces.
The world fades to blood red,
and only the eyes of giraffes,
which mingle with the stars,
remain to show the world existed
separate from the sky.




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An excerpt from A Chorus of Voices
by Kurt Messick
Dry Bones Press, February 2003