VisionsofOrion
Coming Home at Dusk
How faint the echoes
of a loaded boombox
belting out its metallic grind.
Every deadbeat voice in town
would have been proud;
delirious over the sound
of a prodigal son – coming home
in combat boots
sinking under a naked sky.
Making a scene with the tide
– shaking your fist at the rain
open throated like your father;
howling blue notes East of the sun
all the way to Beale Street.
©️ Orion Foote
Byline from Blacks Point
Rewind to a church on the rise:
we’re making rough cuts
like Burroughs & Matisse,
getting down to business
outside on the lawn, where fishing
angels catch us unawares.
Inside, antiquated minutes bask
cover to cover – wheeled out
for a good once over –
itching for a footnote
in this time weathered collage;
our own past turned inanimate,
as though in glass plate stasis –
dripping from hallowed walls.
© Orion Foote
Christmas with Emily
It is etched on windows
that I will arrive at the meaning
of Winter – scrawled with pencil
on antique chocolate wrappers.
In feeble long hand bliss
we trace fine lines – cutting a dash
through New England snow –
the long & the short of it
keeping us at arm’s length.
Codes in invisible ink hum
in surround sound – outside
amongst pear trees & sky
the view from your room
remains in stone – singing louder
than ears ringing at midnight.
©️ Orion Foote
A Child’s Winter Show
Your voice receded
like the sun – it fell
behind shadowed hills
with winter’s deft touch.
The hours came – left us
as slow as slow could be,
drifting over blue dodgems
and fever pitched furore.
I wanted to reach up
with frozen hands, pull
the sunglasses from your eyes
and watch the rain
crying over toffee apples.
©️ Orion Foote
Three Prologues
i
It’s contagious –
swapping energy currencies
inside a faux Havana bar;
the grotesque & profane
peering through windows
at Mama San – a lunch hour
screwball comedy – moolah
for spicy rhetoric with a decor
that reeks of name droppings;
of circadian rhythms awakened.
ii
I wonder how he coped –
a shrinking Napoleon on St Helena;
sketching cherry laurels
& japanese snowballs
beneath a deathly quiet
turned Belladonna – night’s shade
over an Atlantic wind chill;
a loose cannon echoing over stone.
iii
My latest obsession
performs like a Neapolitan diva.
She likes the sound
of her own voice – as mother
used to say – holding the floor
in after hours residency.
She’s all vignettes & glissandi,
eyeballing me with intent
like Mona Lisa locked in time –
her signature tune as encore.
©️Orion Foote
Conjuring You in Daylight
I lit up in remembrance
when you called out.
How foreignly familiar
the sound of one’s own name
when spoken by another –
it leapt through your mouth
as a linguistic curve-ball.
Once, you turned bedfellows
with skateboards into Gods,
wrapped in musky sheets –
still damp with night’s balm
and stale ginger wine.
A sleazy mannequin
stood vigil – lone voyeur,
dripping bright threads
that would brush your skin
after he would leave;
the jealous morning light
tapping at your window,
wishing its name adored.
©️Orion Foote
The Ventriloquist
It’s contagious –
all this spirit writing.
Voices from the other side
breathing down my neck
every five minutes – buttoned up
in starch & lace – lips pursed,
sharing a private joke in silence.
The familiar surge
of unexpurgated words,
exploding like glass
inside the cranial suite –
overturning tables
like Jesus on a bender;
hammering home the point
and he doesn’t care who knows it.
This is where I leave them,
squabbling with themselves
in gibberish – making ashes
from their own kind
behind an invisible line –
past & present tenses
indifferent to one & all,
like a winter lawn at night.
©️Orion Foote
Arriving on Set
Wild perennials
sing into a blue sweetness
– hard pressed for words
to describe this mettle;
this ever present light
that sings true in time.
To whisper amongst
Japanese Snowballs on parade
– a rampant sun
breathing down my neck
in morning’s renewal;
voices rising inside me
like a Kabuki chorus in flight.
©️Orion Foote
Cognizance
It was never in my rider:
these plumes of damp mist
with their bluish grey drift
– poised like a spiteful tsunami.
An encore of unknown dread,
when as a child, my eyes
burned beneath horned prongs
of ancient trees – outstaying
the dead on a seared hilltop.
These things I knew – long before
human nuance or pageantry,
or of tiptoed paths cutting
a dash to hidden ways.
On that porch, I knew in advance
what you could only guess at;
fumbling for your lines as dusk fell.
©️ Orion Foote
Kororo Lights
(Haiku)
In stillness you glow,
Like ever vigilant guards;
Lone witness at night
©️ Orion Foote
Visions of Orion Poetry 