Friday, September 09, 2016

Density



The river creates
and carves out
the heart
of the city.

In 1900, after seventy-
seven years of sludge
and shit and sewage
had spilled,
the stream was turned
and for the first time
the silt began
flowing south.

However, in
the deepest bowels
of winter
the churning bottom currents
crawl blindly back along
the riverbed
remembering their ancestral
route, making their migration
against the machinations of man;
home.



Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Empty



I walked next to her
through the door and down
the long hallway that led
to the pub her
and I
frequented.

Next to the entrance was a man in
a suit shuffling a deck of bicycle
playing cards behind an old, worn,
wooden stand with the words “Magic”
inked in what must have once been
bright stylized red lettering long
since faded.

A small crowd, maybe half
a dozen people, were standing in
front of him watching.
She stopped to see upon hearing
their collective small gasp of
incredulity, a sweeping
murmur of disbelief and awe.

He put the cards beneath the stand
and pulled out two glasses. Empty,
they stood there in silence as 
she, I, and the crowd waited.

He picked up one glass and poured
its nothing into the other, which
slowly filled with wine as he did.
He then took the now full glass and
poured its wine back into the empty
first. And again both
glasses were empty.

The crowd clapped as she and I
stood at the back in silence.

She continued to the bar
and sat down. So did I. 
Next to each other like
two glasses.



Monday, August 01, 2016

Here, Yesterday

We are fictions.
You and I dance without knowing the steps
or hearing the music.
We blind mice trapped
In a wheel we free
-ly run. One of
Dreams and despairs, of
Hope and And’s… but each
and
All are shadows cast.

I am dead, have, been,
Willisareevermorebe-
Coming. The mask is
The mask is the mask
Is the mask. And death;
Eternal friend, foe, Freudian
Ally…

I dream of escape.
The endless, deep, eclipsed-
By-the-ocean state of
Unrest provoked by memory
Of the self as an atom,
Rotating, on the eternal
Shifting seas and tides of
Life which, that, have, will,
Metronomically cascade upon
Smash and crash upon
The shore of


I dream of magic because I want to disappear.


How does anyone live?

How do I stop hurting?

How do I hide?

How do I escape, and from what, and into what?

.
..
… … …

My first response is to run.

Run.

Run.

Run.
Run. Run. Run. Run.
Chase the circle; be the oroborus.
It is all, and you are but a scale.
Scale.
Weight weighing weighed.

What do your atoms say?

Umbridge at “you;”
are you the we, the they, the you?

Wouldn’t they rather be free of you,
As you would be free of you?
Who is speaking for who?

Your desires and dreams, your
Wants, you, a waste; mute words on deaf ears.
Hers. Your own. The world’s…

…exercises in entropy.

Does the actor know when they are acting?
What does the character know?

Escape is just a short run-

Jump away.

Every. Time. You.

Run.


You will always be alone.
You and your/you’re is not real,
To anyone.
And, frankly,
No one gives a shit.

Atoms. Smashing.

Run and

Jump.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow



Flailing and failing; fighting and fear and feelings of falling,
frustration pounding like pistons, pumping paranoia and
priming the self-protecting impulse to run.

The grinding squeal of brakes and pressure plates
squeezing like a million daily decisions and considerations
stopping you, us, stranded…

on the train whose rusty tracks
we watch weave over rustic hills, off into the
ruby red sunseted distance.

We wait, for the overheated engines of emotion
that have been driving us,
for the glowing sparks of steel dust to settle, the billowing
steam and smoke, to cease;

we wait, for what,
unknown,
comes after the
enveloping silence.