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.

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.

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.

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.