The unbearable heart of a boy in October

His ursine sillouhette lumbered
in the glum solitude of starlight
sounding the depths of almost
autumn for the paper thin distance
between origami folds of dreams.

Both sides of the fold
in a crease of pewter moon
light against black fir and mountain spine,
the grizzly drew me in to a dance
of course matted hair against man-flesh.
A slender delicate lady slipper
dream and cold salmon blood
mingled on the wisps of we.

No tango, No waltz, No rhythm
spoken. nails & claws, teeth & teeth
the palor of ivory moments carved
like fiction into once-boy skin.

All of this, the remembered tune
of birth and the hope for meaning
as embers churn by tongue of flame
to charcoal and blackness,
becomes dirt.

Derma Kaput -

There seems to be a lot of potential in the subject matter here, though I have a little difficulty connecting the "gypsy" of the title to the poem itself - not because I'm dense (which is always a possibility) but because I think it needs to be strengthened. Besides that, here are my other thoughts, which you can take or leave as you wish:

1. "ursan" is an odd choice of word. Did you intend "ursine", or was this purposeful?

2. "origami folds" is interesting but seems out of character for the subject matter of the poem, even with the "paper thin" and "sides of the fold" references that it matches up with. As that descriptive metaphor seems to fade after the seventh line, I'd either seek a more fitting metaphor or expand this one (because it IS interesting) to encompass the whole poem. Perhaps even unfold the origami as you unfold the poem.

3. the dance metaphor has the most obvious potential (and perhaps connects to "gypsy") but again feels like it could be more fully developed, maybe finding a way to make it "dance" with the afformentioned origami metaphor. Or better yet: focus on one or the other but not both.

4. Following on the dance metaphor, strategic use of dactyls within the cadence of the poem might be effective, especially with the waltz reference (at least if you're still playing with vocabulary choices).

5. Personally, I'd favor dropping the comma at the end of the second to the last line.

6. I can't seem to formulate my thoughts today except in list fashion. Weird, huh?