A quick flip of the wrist,
metal spins until it can’t
in violent protest.
Send the hand back again,
the same blur reversed,
the same violent end.
An opening is made,
the way paved in rubber;
for the pummeling of power,
the ghost of distraught horses
now set to pull cages
on metal that spins
until it can’t.
In the summer of 98
at 4 am or thereabouts
I snapped the bar in half.
The drill press didn’t run for two days.
Most of this is empty space;
the parts we recognize are our own.
Drawing lines to define the void,
make it digestible,
before it gets away from us.
All of it is exploding.
Omnidirectional fire
in a panicked escape
from itself or any purpose in its future;
circumventing speed for scale
while we just try and catch up.
What can we possibly expect?
Swimming around in noble gasses,
breathing fire and using the ash
to write equations or trace shadows.
When the mouth of the cave has closed,
all that we know will be darkness;
but most of this is empty space,
so perhaps there is still some truth in that.
It grows.
I can’t hear it,
I can’t see it,
but it grows nonetheless,
and thus I must maintain it.
My bitter responsibility,
to give my community something nice to see;
make it clear,
I have things under control.
There is nothing to hide inside this home.
Ceaselessly it grows,
and to keep it healthy;
not just well kept but vibrant,
I must feed it.
Strengthen and hasten its progress.
It grows-
and I must do more.
I must give more,
to keep it level and clean.
Not let it overtake the stake I’ve claimed,
let this plot of land
become gnarled wild tufts,
unruly- lacking discipline.
A space that
reflects aspects of the occupants it protects,
else it will grow
an uneasy sense of threat.
The not quite right
of an unkempt lawn- empty flower bed.
It grows, and so I must mow, and mow, and mow, and mow, and mow.
We try so hard to find the words
to remember the fading dream,
catch falling water with our hands;
to capture the best memories.
There is no jar that can hold them,
but go on and puncture the lid.
No box so large as to entomb,
but go on and wrap what you can.
Their fragile nature makes them great
while also the cause for heartbreak;
for the truth that they make us feel
cannot reconcile what is real.
Though we are obliged to live lies,
and the moments we truly lived
will fade into obscurity;
take solace in what gifts they give.
It is in those spaces we find
the time to appreciate love
and enjoy one another’s truths
that have eluded us since youth.
Unfettered by any demands
we become what we’re meant to be,
but like sifting desert sands;
that power is far too costly.
Still, I want all those memories;
the haunting phantasm of those dreams,
the moist lips of a desperate drink;
let photographers fill in those blanks.
The radio is blasting static;
the sound is the feeling,
and a warm glow nearby
retreats from the cold outside
while I remain cool, congealed.
Broken is the world around me
this is all that there is.
While the state of my mind
is two hundred yards behind,
because ignorance is bliss.
Suspended like a house of cards,
above all the fuel and coolant
just waiting for death to catch sight
of this lure that could not fight;
a bold offense to the brutal movements.
By the time my mind has found me,
there is nothing it can do.
Whatever this is, it won’t be fast,
suffering until at last,
I am able to join with you.
I need
I need
But twigs in the beginning;
piled high, unaware
of what those heights were for,
then set ablaze
raging for the air,
for the fuel.
I need
I need
I want it all and quickly,
the fibers – the paper
the wood – the tree
the house – the forest
the world!
I need
I need
Though you neglected me to embers
I still burn in darkness
slumbering angst
waiting to wake again and feed,
should you offer any more.
I need
always, I need.
Bone dry promise baked in the sun;
the deed was done.
Like leaves, they fell
in that cold hell
belie the ground beneath our feet;
in foul deceit.
Their open arms
gave only harm;
wrapping around us like rapture.
The prey captured,
they drop their ruse;
our end: refused.
It enters each day, guttural;
a weeded stone facade surfacing,
the bog still clinging to the parapets,
and a hollow rusted trumpets lament:
“Tristadem, tristadem,” it sings,
haunting the space between.
Rising from those shadowed depths
to soar out the crenel lacerations
and lumber over the landscape
collapse bluntly at my feet:
“Tristadem, tristadem,” it moans.
My eyes furrow, bent in prayer
that the earth swallow this foul place,
the empty halls and echoes
the intermittent plummet of longing wetness
dripping drops of “tristadem, tristadem,”
on the dry parchment of any ears
hermitted away in that stale space.
Waiting for a days worth of dirt,
long wood planks nailed in darkness,
a place to lay one’s head,
and a thread to pull restless lips closed,
so the morose melody of “tristadem, tristadem,”
may never pierce them again.
Canned corn on a steel plate,
cooled a long time ago
when the sun was still ripe
and the chair was still on all fours.
Cigarette butts discarded on the stove
crumpled like crash test dummies
burned, brutalized and- left behind,
are only the parts that keep you safe.
The ceiling fan is motionless above
compensating at a tilt for the missing blade
dead skin piled on like a snow drift
nodding soberly in the gust from an open window.
A closed door with holes that fit like gloves
hides the muffled sounds of lament
from somewhere beyond desperation
lost deep in the forest of defeat.
No one has time to finish their meal.
not like this
not like this
not like this
If thunder could only speak through a trumpet,
that is the sound.
It is everywhere,
abruptly,
then slowly not- a passing flood.
A confidence of noise that terrifies the insides,
sends them scattering in all directions,
but bound to you.
the fruitless effort makes them-
resentful.
Desperately,
I wish I could capture that sound;
pin it to this page
and share it with you,
if only to prove to myself its existence.
When it rises again,
I am still broken.
A school bus made of rubber
out of control
too fast to stop
forcing itself through too small a gap;
the agony of that sound.
All life inside me fades as it does
replaced by uneasy stillness.
I can see no reason for it but-
something is wrong.
The scurrying of my insides
incites the space I find myself in to salivation.
It could be-
the way it feels,
the stillness;
I am already within the monster’s mouth.
There are no signs for or against this
just the absurd quiet between;
a caesura in the fear.
The hills outside could be rolling off
into a horizon unseen,
or the listless valleys of an ancient tongue overgrown;
the eater of worlds.
I feel it deeper now, its third report.
Like I should know its purpose
and it is violently disappointed.
The birth of a maladie underdeveloped.
Only trachea and lungs and noise,
no head or mouth to shape the air;
fumbling out this inelegant discord.
That’s the sound.
I imagine the world is silent,
lest whatever ill fate it portents take it too.
Grow Gray With Me 