more on torero

Listening
to dreams
Torero's doesn't weep.

He
turns away
from the sound.

A resolute man,
Torero has
always

been
decisive and
decided about what

needs to be done.

#

His job title
Mechanica Man
means

tuning in to
the sounds
of

the world beyond
the paradise
wall.

He listens for
the cough
of

a motor yielding,
hearkens to
the

sound of brakes
screeching, giving
way

as the road
slides down
into

the balance between
life and
death.

It is often
death for
the

machine.
And the
abyss claims the

carcass
of discarded
bodies, some still

shiny and new
gleaming chrome
and

sweet-smelling leather everywhere.
From this
Torero's

calculating eye sees
the body
they

can put together.
Already he
knows

what form can
be pulled
from

resilience.
He knows
what shapes hide

within the curved
contours of
bumpers

doors
sweet and
dark secretive undercarriages.

#

For all his
years and
expertise

he has never
found a
one

to compare to
her who
lives

her life of
lonely happiness
beyond

the wall that
keeps them
apart.

third movement==alternate girl dreams and torero listens

In the middle
of the
night

she
hears a
crunch and knows

whose
teeth are
making that noise.

She doesn't need
the lights.
She

doesn't need to
see his
face.

Memory
is printed
onto the coils

of her inner
circuits. She
knows

he won't stop
searching until
he

finds
skin and
bone and crunches

them to powder
between his
teeth.

#

Far away, nightmares
find their
way

to
where Torero
watches the dark.

Whispers
of her
fear filter through

the paradise wall
and he
knows

he could be
wretched, but
she

suffers
her life
in imagined freedom

with a pain
that goes
deeper

than the pain
he carries
in

the shell of
his metal
casing.

Above him the
Memory Tower
sways

Rocked by night
winds, it
dances

under lonely stars,
the songs
of

those gone before
reminding citizens
below

"we gave up
everything so
you

might have this
hope of
someday

reaching up high
and breaching
this

wall
that keeps
us away from

the paradise we
are told
exists

on the other
side of
this

wall."