There is gray, I know
made from too many things.

It happens as each color turns
to fall in the colder (prediction)

Not as dumb luck thinks
blindness and black are one

But more like night, distantly
surrounded by a clarity of voices.

First -
Colors transfixed by the sun
hum immobile yet vibrant
when looking with the eye:
the yellow dot of a dandelion
flat on a brown dirt plane

Second -
Regalia shouldered piled on
with shovels against the hint
of stalking beasts, regalia lifting
imaginatively self's great sky
like a white winged animal spirit
birthed underwater from a crown
wishing to feed and roost

Third -
Orbits know nothing
of day and night
forever locked
in their occasionally
perturbed circles

Fourth -
Light is best
in transition
between day, night
with shadows
accentuating angles
enhancing the most
familiar dandelions

This happens as each color turns
to fall in the colder (prediction).

Time bends in loops like clowns crafting
rubber balloon sculptures for clapping kids.

In the gray that only knows itself
through the accident of strangers

Who could always use
just a little more and then...

Or kept rigidly denied just
for the hell of reinforcing
a struggle that never wins.

For who can hear what came
before everything was new?

Black is the combination
even washed, filtered into gray
clear as words through time
that seeds blow upon wind,
seen only in the light of midnight
by those far outdoors, past bedtime
while the children sleep within.

hope at last arrives, packaged
to be consumed in markets
down in the middle, aisle 3
just enough above the floor
to be eye level with kids,
moms, dads not beyond reach
of those laser scanning guns

in aisle 7 plain spoken plastic
guns sporting GI Joes boxed
in sets tied with strings hanging
clear over the edge, a flat world
ripe as the harvest in produce

and mommies bing bang their carts
vigilantly positioned for the best
their jiggly-wheeled carts might find
like a huntress stalking the wild
drug-creamed forest of goods:
pressed fish formed treats pleasing
even to tight tucked tummies, eyes
and other common singularities
where light no longer can escape

except a warm home bathed
in aluminum tv light; heads
droning like drills into bone --
that uniform background noise
subtle as completely surrounded
might feel on a family holiday

the dog sniffed and fetched his ball, now
questions like the blank stare of trust
what invisible hand secures his bowl
that might stroke him into sleep

no matter – the plot surrounds the house
bordered by dad's strong piss with shouts
from mom, encouraging her man ape
who dreams through whispers of tunnels
reaching in his chest like a touch that pulls
a memory of joy fanned out in surrender

yet, held hard with knuckles
close as sports sorting winners
solely from winners: a cool panic
gripped secretly strained, weak
in a traitorous heart that gives