Cogwheel Ballet

Cogwheel Ballet by Odin Roark Hot Humid New York summer Industrial commerce 24/7 Textile scents of humid wool Acerbic edge of chemical dyes Permeating wood and air Thick oily lubricants Layered enslavement Nowhere to escape A century’s senses imprisoned Drawing on all he has… One work-for-rent dreamer Of agile body Holds forth Awaiting his nightly concession His arabesque of glee 2 AM break The precious pause for moonlight’s silver Thrusting its presence through Floor to ceiling windows Refracting off bare metal frames Arcing visual life across the radiators Curling over his labor station Arcing across planked floor His rough hewn dance surface Awaiting… From floors below Dissonant seduction begins Printing presses come alive Rhythmic noise Machinery’s first chaotic movement Changing its accelerated pace Into allegro’s process Then back to a scherzo finish The imaginative sounds Many dismiss as noise Even as others hear music This crescendo of background rumble Joined by circular rises and falls Sustains the dancer’s cocoon His undaunted confidence In iron cogs gnashing Creaking gears kissing Turning belts lathering Pistons rising Falling Pounding energy Echoing its creation to the imagination above Gracefully He moves about the floor Contorting his body Bending into pain Releasing into pleasure But Nightly sensations end too soon Midnight shift perks infrequent Labor’s drudgery winning Rendering body vapid By morning’s sunrise Squinting at daylight Infused with a Spartan workout Of fantasized dream movements Between lifting warehouse containers His aching arms of no-questions-asked effort Hang limp beside legs often of steel Now mere precarious stilts to make it home