Tag Archives: time

Thin Walls

The paper has fallen from the walls.
The paste that held it in place laid to waste
by the passing of time;
as memories before it,
tenants before that,
dreams yet earlier.

It recoils away from its purpose
in sensual curves
that languish treacherously
aching for the floor beneath;
the filth and refuse of
accumulated events.

Between the patterns and the plaster
life propagates
milky pustules undulating
performative movements
anxious for a future in flight.

The sun sets against the windowsill.
The portal closing
on a perspective lost
to the procession of stars;
the persistence of planets
the carelessness of time.

Delicacy

Hindered by broken moments
                  the time passes
                        meat from a grinder
                                  squeezing out uncomfortably,
                  sustenance indiscernible from grissle.

oil, grease
      leisure brought to sloth
                    manifest
      falling like melted clocks
                  to a porcelain plate below.

somewhere
          cellophane is waiting.

Throwing Rocks

Let the stone stand
the mountains seed

               planted

marked by arrogance
to commemorate some meaningless deed.

Let the stone stand,
the visionary’s pride

               sculpted

shaped by waking dreams,
that only the brutal rocks can confide.

Let the stone stand
the idealogue’s last breath

               buried

by thousands of its lesser
matching presence with cuts unto its death.

Let the stone stand
the titan’s bane

               humbled

laid low by the cutting slivers of time
leaving nothing more than a phantom pain.

Let the stone stand
as a reminder

               warning

pride is a chisel to make sand from mountains.

Samsara

What ends will begin again
the distant observer reminds me
                                      hidden in shadow
their eyes reaching out with their own light
           metal things – sharp like ice
                                    seeing me fully;
where presence, thought, and action
                               coincide
                                               all the moments in between.

           A brutal transparency
that turns the veins to stonework.

We lock eyes over long,
                       each of us
                                          throttled by the others gaze
only one of us
                                             haunted by it,
until the day ends and a new one begins.

In the morning

                           I will wake
to see myself staring once again
                                          eager,
but patient to take my place
                to see through these eyes
rather than the emotionless space.

Time

There were a thousand years behind that hand
the cloth, pregnant with water,
hides the universe
gestating forever and always.

Together they press against an ancient brow
weary more from years than heat;
a symbolic gesture.

The way the sun hits the falling water
shatters it across the stonework.
At this altitude it looks like
anthropology screaming;
an echo of countless others
refracted exactly here

[None of this is captured on the magazine cover
only so much can be seen in pictures]

Supine

The walls here are illusory
a stonework reminder of
               (our options)
though stone can be broken
walls overcome

Often the only wall is
               (you)
                    Your will
                              your means
                                        your knowledge.

Here
         it is time that binds us
the immutable agony
running headlong towards us
to keep us from getting out.

Every year conquered
leaves the others more pronounced
those walls
              (these walls)
                           are real.

Life in Notes

Be loved now,
the world wars on regardless
living your life anyhow

Lives we live
are borrowed from time bidden
subtle sorrows that years give

Soon stolen
from beneath these broken feet
the long journey has swollen

Grieve the road
the disheveled rocks and stones
knives against the heavy load

See the trees
that line the path with their arms
embracing all the eye sees

Feel the sun
flow over you in fountains
know the place where life begun

Inside you
there exists always a choice
two voices you can pursue

Disavow
time is tentative circles
it’s enough to be loved now.

Clockwork

The hands reaching for places they should not
feeling what is well and the gaps between
while the gears stutter over echoed thoughts
drawing out the whirring sounds long and obscene
a betrayal of the bright golden sheen
and the expertly crafted mechanics;
a token of wit and genius pristine
with disjointed and broken organics.

They keep winding, but no one sets the time
Polish and shine but no one climbs inside
as if admitting damage is the crime
and thus the past is where the now resides,
the future an unspoken thing implied
while savage moments spin along unchecked
and give cause for our fictions to divide
until at last ourselves we will dissect.

Unfinished

In my youth I found challenge everywhere
hidden in words with dynamic meanings
discovering what it’s like to be new
and make sense of the world I was born in.
I hid behind books and entertainment;
as if that would make me feel less alone.

Once put on stage I had to take great care
to decide on my intent and leanings
and pray to find success among so few
who had failed life and lost all but their skin.
I redefined my goals and attainment;
I moved my failures into the end-zone.

My divorce left me drowning in despair
nothing before had been so demeaning
my children’s vision of me torn askew
losing house, home, and all that I had been.
I traded it all for an arraignment;
she poisoned the term “father” on her own.

The days have since wore me down smooth and bare
given me time for order and cleaning
to find value in the years that ensue.

House

If you were looking for a side street to get there, you’d be disappointed. It’s not like that anymore. It’s a ‘house’, not a ‘home’. The future has grown up around it, piling on top of it mounds of inspiration, newness and memories until it was forgotten beneath the accumulated past.

I’ve heard it said once the bright eyed and bushy tailed soldiers who first met with the innovations of war and machinegun fire found themselves piled up at the end of their conclusion. Hours; days maybe, of un-ending fire until they were stacked so high that they were no longer, “Roger” or “Bud” or “Kevin” or “That guy who always snored.” You’d forget their names and they’d slowly become “brick” and “brick” and “brick” and “That one brick that dreamed with his nose and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it.” The house is like that. Too much time, tragedy and transition between anyone else and the house to remember it was ever a place to live.

So, they built around it I guess. I can only imagine the story surrounding that. So much of the city has been torn down and built back up again. Monuments, apartment complexes, family homes, you name it; all of them have been caught in the crossfire of the free market and consumerism. How this place dodged those heat seeking missiles is beyond me. I can only imagine the husk of that place was so long cold and dead, they couldn’t quite hit it and moved on to the warm bodies nearby.

It’s a wonder I saw it myself! Any other day I wouldn’t have noticed it. If it had taken me even a second longer to make out what it was, I would have already moved on, back to the meeting at hand. But it just ‘clicked,’ after a few moments. Ted had said something, you know Ted? Well he had said something during our call that triggered this whole moment where my mind disengaged and went somewhere else. I think it was something like, “It’s not like you ever go anywhere interesting on the Ferris Wheel, it’s all elevation and the marvel of how tiny we are in conjunction with how well we’ve compensated,” and I got lost on that train of thought looking out the south window into the unkempt grounds below.

As I moved from train car to train car in my mind attempting to unpack what he had said while looking down at this puzzle of vegetation, it snapped in place. I could see it! The house! Like focusing your eyes for the first time in the morning. It went away for a second, but sure enough I was able to click it back into place again, much easier this time. It was there, struggling beneath the waves of overgrowth around it. Below the briars and other hardy plants that couldn’t give two shits about the sun. I had to focus on the meeting of course, but I couldn’t hardly look away either. Each time I did I had to take a moment to find it again.

End of the day, I’m down on the bottom floor looking for a way into the interior grounds. Did you know there isn’t any? The whole south wall is concrete for the first two stories. And before you ask, I checked, it’s the same for the other buildings. The whole area is inaccessible. No wonder it looks like a tree hell down there.

Now I can’t stop looking at it though. That house. Makes you think doesn’t it? It has got to be a whole new flavor of darkness in there.