Closing out the set

Poetry is not my thing obviously, but I find that I can appreciate it on some sort of strange level that I previously thought impossible. What I'm really trying to say is that while I'm new to this, I can swing the jive, bro. This next poem is something born of a word-scat session and is my attempt at a free verse. Enjoy or reject it. Your call (Note: I earlier mentioned I would base a poem off of one of the book poems, but this is not that poem).

There Were Things in that Cave that Once Crawled on Many Legs but now Slither for Fear of the Air

by: David Mathis

The air was tinted pink and gold, like little bits of colored glass had been smashed to powder and thrown into the sky. Swirling, galaxies formed, dark void unchained-- renewed with twinkling vigor that could never be extinguished. A sigh, the Earth creaked, groaned. Cool shadow pools at the nape of a neck that is a tree which cannot be a tree; trees shine brightest when grown horizontally. Beaks. Sharp beaks snap. Their rigid lines purely straight, they crunch. Feathers rigid, they drift, snow-like from the mouths of boars. Once eaten, the bird must make a perilous journey through unknown caverns. A roar, a rumble, a grumble. Earthquake shears ear drums in half. A cacophonous parade of splintered earth and broken homes will follow in the wake. Deep inside this dark and brooding quake there lies an ancient mackerel. Silently he toils with tools of iron and steel. He hammers the kinks from the earth. There lies a scale that always rests at 0 and at his fins it waits. Molten earth surrounds him in his cold cave.

Dusk flits past, faster than a camera shutter. Butterflies drift lazily. The smooth of stones and the heat of day fading. Stars sing the most haunting melodies where they rest. The ripples can be felt on a silent and cold night, reverberations without sound. Close your eyes on a night like this. Breathe the stars. Your life is connected. Stardust. There is no whole. Trembling fingers, icy tears-- in each one there lies countless stars reflected. they sing in tandem.