A Small Midnight Reminder

 

I felt you last night

through the sheets and comforter

And the quilt on top for good measure

You were curled up into yourself

arms tucked behind your knees

to pull your legs ever closer

I was lying on my back

with my head turned to the left

in an effort to keep my earbud in

You sounded like you were dreaming

mumbling something incoherent

But I heard one thing clearly:

“You’re delusional” you said

and what could I say to that?

Nothing, that’s what

And then you went quiet for a while

and you drew your legs even closer

as you started biting through your lip

When you left you kissed me

and I tasted metal for a moment

until you sank back into the mattress

And tears started pooling on my pillow

as I wondered if you’d ever come back

to see me, and if you’d really be there

But I knew you wouldn’t

at least not that night

The batteries had died.

Nous connaissons la chanson

 

I remember when I fell behind

plucked a tiny flame as I dined

and wondered where I found it

It must have been from beneath my chair

as it was hiding its warmth from me there

but calling to me in hushed whispers

We all know the tune, know it by heart

but how it pains me for us to be apart

as the whirlwind rages outside

I held the little flicker by the nape

as it wriggled and tried its best to escape

but its efforts were in vain

I arose from my seat and moved to dispense

in a sense, of the flame in a stick of incense

lowering it to the tip of the object

We all know the tune, know it by heart

but how it pains me for us to be apart

as the waters rise to our doorsteps

It rested a moment on the end of the stick

then, all at once, like some ancient magic

it faded to smoke with a mouth-borne breeze

That tiny flame died that day

with one small breath did it blow away

and all that remains is an overwhelming stench

We all know the tune, know it by heart

and how it pains me for us to be apart

as the twister tears us asunder

How It Feels to Be 5 Gum

 

I am hollow and brittle and ready to crumble

If I curl up too much, I’ll collapse in on myself

I am aimless

I am nigh-formless

I am a beam of light flying from a star,

    on a perfect trajectory to never hit anything

        along my path

I feel as though I cannot breathe

    even though I am

My legs are numb

I feel as though someone has ripped out my left lung

I feel as though someone has replaced my stomach’s butterflies

    with moths

My hands ought to be translucent

My lungs are laden with the inexpressible

I am the stubborn eyebrow-hair finally being plucked out

I am a moonbeam missing the Earth and flying away

I am a comet that will burn up before impact

I am an eraser’s shavings being swept from a desk

I won’t last too much longer

Devotee

 

You’re so stupid.

Why are you so?

You sit here languid,

and lazy, you hoe.

You just don’t know,

but it’s oh so funny,

how you bumble though.

It’s sweet as honey.

Oh so lonely.

Sad little boy,

you catch on so slowly.

It’s enough to annoy,

And how I enjoy,

When I annoy you.

I enter and destroy,

or at least, I try to.

When I finally do,

there’s nothing left.

When I get a view,

inside your chest.

There’s nothing left

but a hollow shell

of ribs under breast

as far as I can tell.

Your heart is a well

that I have run dry

with my thirst I can’t quell

But I don’t even try.

We wanted to die

Or so I claimed.

You didn’t reply

to what I proclaimed.

Alas...

Wordlessly blamed,

for what I felt.

And I was ashamed,

and oh how I knelt

To the god I thought dwelt

Beneath your skin

and how I hoped we’d dealt

with the resident wraiths within.

Where should I begin?

Your tongue like winter?

And I with no inn

that would allow me to enter?

You were my center,

But how cold you were.

“How could I resent her?”

My thoughts were a blur.

How I would defer

to your precious depression,

and try to help you deter

Such needless self-aggression.

Inevitable regression

despite my aid,

and emotional oppression

left me flayed.

Your icy blade

pierced my being.

The wounds decayed

as the blood was fleeing.

But now it is freeing.

To no longer be

your blindly agreeing

devotee.

Where Art Thou?

 

Oh, sister, where art thou?

In the phone signals speeding up and down the wire?

In the radio waves dispersing themselves for eternity?

In the crackle of the stylus along the vinyl’s narrow ridges?

In the hiss of the magnetized tape as it relays its memories?

In the cold translated binary fed to us through copper strings?

Aren’t we all just memories in each others’ minds?

Collected in each others’ neuron patterns, to be replayed and altered?

Warped and distorted through every passing moment?

To be recalled from storage, cracked, degraded, and made into something else?

Something so far from its inspiration as to be an entirely different thing?

A thing that sometimes the equipment has a hard time reading?

Doomed Fated to be lost in the static.

Through the Valley (Part Six)

Blindly we fumble our way through the pines.

To orient our bodies and guide our souls

Toward our lofty goals, and around potholes.

Then along come the fellers, to desecrate our shrines.

Give man free will, and he will find a way

To bludgeon another, or to bring them down

To the Earth which he has divvied up all around.

The Tao is lost. We have led ourselves astray.

I lay bare my thoughts to no congregation.

Fragmented and disparate, here they manifest.

They languish and bleed and all leave this bequest:

“Heaven was here, before its mutilation.”

 

 

Through the Valley (Part Five)

Beneath the willow tree, I choose to rest my eyes.

For a while, peace is all I know, until a racket begins.

A thwack, then at once a saw blade spins.

I speed to arise, as where I was the tree now lies.

I eschew the limited human conception.

What lies in reality is beyond the definable.

One can only assume what they know is reliable.

An unspeakable truth, beyond our words and perception.

Down the sidewalk I went, at a leisurely pace.

Sunlight pierced through the leaves down onto me.

Suddenly, nostrils burning, I turn around to see,

A worker spraying blight all over the place.

 

Through the Valley (Part Four)

It is ever-present in both of our lives.

A crude reminder of that which could have been.

It has plagued my conscience since who knows when.

You can hear it in the wind, and in the deepest of sighs.

The artist sits at his bench and toils away.

The clay in his hands forms the young brains.

He hopes they form well, and that what remains,

Is well-suited for the elements, and does not decay.

The cardinals preach their sermons no more,

From the tops of old oak trees that served as their stages.

Their words were true scripture, but came not from pages.

Now nothing but memories from the valley of yore.

 

 

Through the Valley (Part Three)

Nobody on the floor remotely expected it.

To see a face outside their very window pane.

Difficult, being seventeen stories up to explain,

Why all of a sudden, the skyline had in it a bit more Janet.

The mountains on either side are obscured by clouds.

The wailing of the damned can be heard all around you.

Trapped in the hills, they cry because they know not who,

Has decided their fates, and lets the details not escape any mouths.

Silence pervades all. Emptiness consumes.

A void fills my heart, and it grows and grows.

With festering boils, my body and will begin to decompose.

Our flesh is torn asunder by the rats in our tombs.

 

 

Through the Valley (Part Two)

The valley is not a pleasant place in my opinion.

Reminders abound of your sins on the ground.

As the blood on your hands drips, it makes not a sound.

“Oh yes, do as you please. You bought it. It’s under your discretion.”

I turned to my wife, sitting down and holding a mirror.

“Which face should I use today dear?”

“The stoic facade, or the grin from ear to ear?”

She mumbled something incoherent. I could not hear her.

The lumberjack, after a hard day’s work,

Turned around to observe his last felling.

A lump in his throat that kept on swelling.

The blisters on his hands remained, with intent to irk.

 

 

Through the Valley (Part One)

Come, let us walk through the valley.

Where the corpses of trees and flowers lie.

Where the memories of what we loved come to die.

Sing sweet little nothings to me, as our essence pools in the alley.

Gleefully we used to prance and dance about.

Now nothing but glimmers of the past

Reflect dimly against the canal’s waters, and at last

We can sing and play and laugh again, but don’t shout.

Trotting off to some other poor sod’s garden

To stamp on his baby olive tree.

To uproot his rosebushes, all twenty-three.

Hollering we departed, after we heard a “pardon?”

 

 

Untitled 10

It starts out as an ache, like a sore back

Not because of something you have, but something you lack.

Given time, one of two things is likely:

Either it heals, or it spreads widely.

Almost as an infection of the mind,

The ache becomes a voice, in manner unkind.