Red

For moments when I close my eyes,
When I am all that I can see,
There floats a rainbow in the skies
And red is all that looks like me.

Violet’s verve is none too plaid,
And indigo is far too far its shadow;
Blue seems true, but not quite my shade
Unless I crow and bend as low.

Green is good—the color that smiles,
Green is the world of all that’s fine;
Hence, alas, it mocks my wiles
And I wish, but fail, to call it mine.

Yellow, sir, may you rest in peace
For I seek no burst of brazen glory;
And orange may just follow please
For I wish no jest along this story.

Which brings me quick, swift and straight
Quite right in time to the arrow’s head;
Now for you an end of wait
And now for me, a tinge of red.

Call it blood, call it wine,
Call it the whispering breath of nerve
Call it all that ever was mine
Call it me, and that should serve.

Red is the yawn and dying gasp
Of the sun that kindly lets me be;
Red is the lesson a flying wasp
Could teach me well quite wordlessly.

Red is the world whenever I laugh;
Red are my eyes each once I cry;
Red's my reason, sliced in half;
Red's the rage that takes me high.

Red is the Spring of wanton joy
And the Fall that comes with age;
Red is the price that every ploy
Brings along as failure’s wage.

The scarf I wear in midst of a show
Is the red of a wizard’s preen;
As red as the heart that yearns to grow
As good as the fairest green.

Red is the blood that runs its time—
The wine that pours as lyric to rhyme;
Red is virtue, and red is vice;
Red is life, and by golly, red is nice.