Tesla's Waltz

In camera obscura

not a minstrel show but black humor

run through and through by the seeker

a microdot of light that strikes the far wall

carrying with it images of the outside world

unseen Lo! these many moons

a swath of innocence bled white

by news of the Great War

This film to be screened with Nikola Tesla

in a private room back of the blind pig

a double-shot of Mickey Finn by wireless

brings Persephone to life; dancing

her robe of gossamer adrift and nebulous

gives direction, and he comes up

from underground to join her

And they dance a lightning waltz

paired motes of dust whirled around the room

in Brownian motion, oblivious to poison gas

blown back and forth across the trenches

indiscriminate as the Sphinx with its plague

and knowing no master but the wind

they whirl around and around

grown pale and breathless, desperate

to break away and sow the seeds

of castles in the air

At last, the music stops

and they embrace, a vanishing act

silent as Rudolph Valentino in The Quest of Life

no applause follows, no trace evidence

a mystery for the ages