Baker’s Pick
Marchell Dyon
Photo Credit: Chiara Cremaschi (CC-by-nd)
Tiny Dancer
She dances…
Like all ugly ducklings do.
After, finally, discovering she is indeed a swan…
She dances…
With her daydreams.
Here metal never chimes—
Her leg braces the link of chains and
Hinges will never
Weigh enough to hold her down.
She dances…
In daylight to California rock she sways—
Watch her dance while sunlight glistens her room.
She rounds again, her many phantom partners.
A chair-bound Ginger Rogers,
Popping wheelies, turning angles,
This wheelchair is not a defeat.
These four wheels are a part of her magic.
This chair
With rainbows streamers is
A thing of beauty
As art is the faith of doing.
All her moves are holy:
All are sacred rhythms.
She sways to the bass section—
Her fingers draw a guitar from air—
While she bangs and grooves
Her head as much as her body would allow,
Like footprints on the tile floor
Her wheelchair makes step impressions.
Her soul has choreographed,
Every movement
Like an appendage the music and she
Become one pulse.
One electric nerve.
A lightning sharp as each of her senses.
Never are her movements dull or in vain.
Never are these movements without metric feet.
A harmonious dance of metal and skin, pure poetry!
The Guitar
He named the guitar Maria.
Upon her body,
He caresses each chord.
Like long-lost lovers untied
Once more in the dark.
Behind a locked door she occupies
A space.
On tall fragrant lit candles
Her ghost shadows, on all four walls
Her torso dances.
She twirls her skirts high above her thighs…
In rainbows of chiffon
Heels clapping,
She breathes through walls.
In waves of wild raw and ravenous chords
She echoes when finished a cool Cuban smoke.
That takes him farther away from me.
Far from the kiddy carpools and the mortgages
Back to tequila sunset
And cabana nights
Back to the beach where he roamed.
Where he found the girl with perkier breasts
The one he made love to all day on the sand.
As he tanned, eclipsed in blankets of ebony hair
Under a then-jealous sun.
Two Left Feet
The measure of the dance has
Never been with me.
The rhythm of body language
The curve speech like
Red polished fingernails.
The sway of hips
Like a Victorian fan singling seduction.
Only the sway of hormones
Caught me.
Through a sorted pique of feelings
A funnel cloud of emotions
Breaking and turning dancing sideways
Up and down.
Many tap dance romances surround me
Down these high school halls
Everyone is coupled up.
Everyone knows how to dance
Everyone but me.
My two left feet trip up
The interest of willing to try.
He tries to square dance pass
My naive awkwardness
I step on his toes too many times.
He walks to
The locker next to mine.
To a girl that
Knows
How to bat her eyes.
In my sad soliloquy
I am a grieving prima ballerina
At my first recital, tutu feathers thinning,
Glass in my slipper, singing the blues.
Eurydice’s Ghost
I electric slide through mediums
My eyes light up like disco balls
My eyes even sparkle in deep shadows
My voice of rhyme—mirrors that of poets
Listen as I smite
The sea with the colors of thunder
While my laughter becomes one,
With the phases of the moon
Hear me, singers
Melody makers—dancers before the flame.
Turn kings into beggars begging for the smooth moves
Of urban urchins.
Make proud queens envy us,
We, who can lift our skirts swinging them high—
Till all can see our embroidered thighs
Make the priest and all the holy rollers tap-
dance into the underworld and
The choirs of Orpheus sing.
And the great doors of Hades open; let those freed, and those still.
Be charmed to climb out of darkness into daylight.
But speak not a word or try to see my face.
Like smoke,
I will ghost away into the wind—
Leaving all without
The musings of a gypsy woman’s hips
Watch as she gyrates to deafening guitar chords
She invites all—
To step into the fire
Dancers become one with flames
But when the melody of this moment ends
The gypsy woman wanders away
Lite as a feather—
Into the crowd
So too, am I.
Marchell Dyon is a survivor of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. She has published in many magazines over the last twelve years. She has been nominated for the Best of the Net prize as well as winning the 2012 Romancing the Craft award from Torrid Lit Journal. She has taken many workshops; she has worked hard to improve her education within the craft of poetry. With stars in her eyes and a deep-rooted imagination she continues to write in Chicago, IL. Email: marchelldyon[at]yahoo.com
