over the rainbow

All the colors seem colder,
boiled down to a stammer--
that tin-pan alley purity
feeling so hackneyed pressed
against such bitter teeth.
Still, because singing is your best
bet left, you might as well sing.
Never mind how far you have fallen
out of rhythm, so far
that each step trips before
all the trippings have rung.
So far that every breath is forgotten
the very moment of breathing,
that each heartbeat is beaten
even before it begins.
This morning, so vivid and blue
it bends the green all a-glow,
burns brightest in that memory
you will never meet.
Where the singing colors
the sun like candy, and
every bird on wing is blue.