CAVALCADE OF FLOATERS

A sea of vitreous humor surrounds

my spasmic eye, a tocsin stream of lava-lamp

black and grey strands move by, a private screening

of a chiaroscuro film noir with Peter Lorre.

Scheherazade undulates, weaving a tale before a King,

hooded veiled spots and specks are KKK or burka-clad

Moroccans romping to a rhythm only they can hear.

Baryshnikov does a pirouette, pas de deux with Maya

Pliesetskaya and glissades into an arabesque

upstaged by Fred and Ginger who twirl, twist and glide

into a Carioca-Samba.

Flamenco dancers come and go clicking castanets,

heal-and-toe go clitterclatter in an Andalusian Pachanga,

or is that racket just my intermittent tinnitus?

Are those shadowy blobs and pseudopods a cryptic code

in hieroglyphics?

Suddenly a Messerschmitt at two o’clock swoops down:

a sputtering Spitfire tries to make it back to base

leaving a jet black wispy trail of smoke.

I was once the sharpest shooter on the Fort Dix

firing range.

Now my eyes deceive me overshadowed

by flashes of light masking little diamonds,

tiny angels among radiant stars waiting to vote

up or down for my placement on that ladder

to eternity along this tomb to womb journey.

Milton P. Ehrlich 199 Christie St. Leonia, N.J. 07605