Tango and the Knife (revision2) Options

[RC James]

(Revision2)



The compass points south
to the knife, the guitar,
deep song,
and the furtive assassin

The dagger readily cuts
through passion.
The shadowy blade
wielder,
or rather, the myth,
reflects the low life
around it.
In the alleyway,
slinky, stealthy moves
possess the killing ground,
mythologies dissipate,
switchblades
lose their owners
to blaring sirens.
The dagger makes no sound,
it weighs
on the assassin,
flashes to the heart
as time; the dead live
in the tango.
Now gone, past renewal,
laid down rope-wise,
thorough benediction,
they live inside the dance,
in the tone of the guitar,
in lucid now,
in what has been ignored,
and what is now uncovered.








Glinting under
a fugitive moon,
the knife slices
through passion;
the spectral defiler,
cloaked in myth,
cuts through low life
around him.

In the alleyway,
the blade’s shine
challenges the sky,
mythologies dissipate.
The dagger
weighs on the assassin.
He apprises
the razor edge
with a wary thumb,
then, silently,
lacerates time,

The dead live in the tango,
laid down rope-wise,
under thorough benediction,
they live inside the tango,
in the tone of the guitar,
in lucid now,
in what has been ignored,
what is now uncovered.




(orig.)

A blade,
in faint shadows
under a fugitive moon,
slices through
distorted passion,
frenzied low life.
In the alleyway,
alien wasteland,
the blade’s shadow
torments the sky.
The assassin savors
the blade’s edge
with an anxious thumb.
Then, without a whisper,
he lacerates time,
the beating heart.
The dead,
past renewal,
under thorough benediction.
live inside the tango,
in the tone of the guitar,
in lucid now,
in what has been ignored,
what is now uncovered,
courage, deep song,
and the assassin’s blade.