Why do so many people disguise themselves
with masks or clothes or words
when what they want is simply to be seen,
out amongst the crowds they linger
where once their lives stretched onwards.
Paint your face & you may well disappear.
Those books about the past are more about
ourselves than anything, like a way for us
to review & renew our world, what’s passed.
Let us call this spinning; an ongoing process.
The drums come in, rattle walls / & intoxicate
we will dance / we will come / we will become
made whole in rain / flashing blue & white lights
cool ground / adorned / ring them bells all night.
People to people / bohemia is between us.
with masks or clothes or words
when what they want is simply to be seen,
out amongst the crowds they linger
where once their lives stretched onwards.
Paint your face & you may well disappear.
Those books about the past are more about
ourselves than anything, like a way for us
to review & renew our world, what’s passed.
Let us call this spinning; an ongoing process.
The drums come in, rattle walls / & intoxicate
we will dance / we will come / we will become
made whole in rain / flashing blue & white lights
cool ground / adorned / ring them bells all night.
People to people / bohemia is between us.
Frank G. Karioris (he/they/him/them) is a writer and educator based in Pittsburgh whose writing addresses issues of friendship, masculinity, and gender. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, Collective Unrest, Maudlin House, Sooth Swarm Journal, and Crêpe & Penn amongst others. They are a regular contributor to Headline Poetry & Press.