There is something sinister in the strings.
Brooding underskirts comment and rustle outside and between legs.
Invisible undergarments bustle and bounce making wearers levitate to the floor.
And on some days you can dance love,
And on others passion, or sorrow, or joy.
But today under uncertain cellos,
The waltz is forgiveness.

Love
Hate
Late.

I catch you in my blinking eye, straight ahead, a few comfortable handbreadths away.
An eye and face familiar, inviting, like a favorite overstuffed chair
Or warm quilt, heavy blankets, slip inside shivering and kicking until burning and have to stick one foot out into the cold.
Or a favorite story that’s been told over and over again until every inflection of every word is known before it’s said,
While I drift off and pull my leg back into bed.

Age
Death
Breath.

All these revenants, spinning beneath tallow and wax.
I am going to die.
You are going to die.
The orchestra is going to die.
In wonderful and horrible ways, heroic and cowardly, with varying amounts of humor,
But in the end, the same way, with no breath or movement or sight or whatever else.
Doesn’t anyone else look at it like this?
Here’s your fifty-five dollars and thanks for your time.
So, once more around the ring in this clammy August air
Our feet will move, your skirts will bounce, and I will smell your hair.

God
Pain
Rain.

All of the people in the world, so close together
Crammed on the dance floor and into their cramped little cardboard boxes.
One on top the next, where even the rats begin to contemplate cannibalism.
Worse than that, when they begin to shoot each other in the streets and use mustard gas and grenades;
Or reveal their secret love triangles on TV or in the newspapers.
It is only when they can get away from the maddening city lights, the ubiquitous buzz of street lamps and purified car exhaust.
Can they drop their coats and shirts at some anonymous lake shore, breathe,
Letting the jasmine night air wash into them and out.
The sky is filled with comets and cupids,
While the streets are littered with freaks and stupids.

Tax
Slum
Numb.

But if we could stop spinning, if we could meet one night in Vienna.
Have coffee in a neutral Swiss cafe; I can forgive you for going on TV and revealing your love triangles;
You can forgive me for killing you and everybody else with mustard gas and bombs.
Or would that be too much to ask.
Instead, stare at each other like lonely Finns, try some other dance.
Because once the tango ends we are still icicles, as frozen and stiff as when the music began.
So, let’s drop our coats, breathe, and scrub our faces clean.
Maybe in the last measures I can say what I really mean.

Health
Gun
Sun.

Your underskirts bounce and comment while the triplets rustle on.
One more look at my watch, at twelve I’ll probably be gone.
Sadness, madness, seconds start to drip
While I start and stutter, pause and bite my lip.
All I need is some honesty, mostly from myself.
And once what is said is said, I don’t care.
I don’t care about the skirts, floors, music, or the middle of your back, where my hand is.
Feet move side to side and back and forth on que
We spin and turn because that is what they are supposed to do.

– Marc Janssen