they will tell you it is heavy
too cumbersome for carry,
yet offer no hands
or place to put it down.
you will lay it to rest
on a bed made of sticks
and tear-rotten twigs
nestled betwixt sodden branches
made for slow burning
with arms folded atop
in a pyre of your own making
you will sacrifice yourself
to warm their empty hands
and light their way.
Every once in a while you may drive past a dead fawn on the highway and become so overwhelmed with the selfishness that you must pullover on the side of the road and sob quietly to yourself in your little, motorized fishbowl. You may be reminded of how often someone taps on your glass to say from afar, “Do you need any help in there?” instead of asking, “What can I help you with?” and all the times you were told, “You’re doing great. Keep going!” rather than, “Here, let me hold you while you rest a while.” The other little, motorized fishbowls continue to zoom along in a suspended Schrodinger’s state of awareness where they are simultaneously looking out for you and also avoiding you, where everyone can see you but no one really sees you.
if i wrote songs, you’d know this one by heart
idly hummed since the ides of March
when i woke up beneath a foreign oak tree
with rope burns for you, smoke rings for me
nothing turns out the way that i picture it
if i don’t ever feel better, i hope you remember this
you built us a palace but i can’t keep from tearing it down
i guess it gets cold whenever the light goes out
my sunshine, you say, as if it weren’t funny
with lightening on your lips, scarred knuckles bloody
the rain pours in, tomorrow we’ll patch the roof
i’ve been wet before, darling, i’m hundred proof
Brick and mortar are kindling much like sticks and stones
empty glass houses since no one’s been home
you built us a temple but i can’t keep from tearing it down
i guess it gets cold whenever the light goes out
not enough warm socks or pillows on beds,
the appointments suggest i continue my meds
so we fill up our time rebuilding ourselves
maybe this time i’ll wake up as someone else
nothing turns out the way that i picture it
if i don’t ever feel better, i hope you remember this
the heat and the glow, the fire once proud
i guess it gets cold whenever the light goes out
retching, roiling
writhing in the empty pit
of fading flutters
where his words were kept
heaving up wings and
kaleidoscope colors
as if the butterflies
which lived there
have died suddenly
it is an art
the ability to disappear
in front of their eyes,
to magic away anything
which means something,
to empty at will
and remain vacant
that you may echo
their performance
without spoiling the
illusion.
with her deep, red eye
soft and heaving
swinging, swaying
rings to count the men
the meals
the miles
rotating in pendulum
on a fleshy axis
cumbersome in mind
and body
rippling, writhing,
as they recoil
from her gravity.
Nothing is altruistic. Nothing is dignified. Only self-preservation is sacred. We are pathetic, we are sloppy, dismal, repulsive parasites crawling in and out of each others’ lives leaving trails of slime and filth and heartache on whomever we touch, leaving insults and contempt wherever we go. We flop around like foul fish on one another’s bodies dropping beads of sweat and revolt on hungry faces and no one is ever satisfied. No taste or touch is love. Each movement is purely depraved instinct. Every drink, every clink of glasses is a contract, a consummation of who shall devour whom in a gluttonous, greedy attempt to eat or be eaten. Each kiss is an attempt to consume another being to aide in digestion of our own self-pity and acidic words and bitter disappointments of the past. We leave every plate empty, licked-clean, before piling onto another like flies on rotten meat. We lay our eggs of inadequacy there and overcome so-called human spirit by deplorable mutiny, infiltrating from within beginning with one’s heart. Tearing the flesh from inside out, we remove each others’ souls with our teeth, fingertips and false sentiments before moving in on another and another and another to ease our own pain and lamentable self-loathing. We cling to other beings, pulling them under to save ourselves. We writhe on top of them, smearing them with sorrows and tainting them with our shortcomings while filling them up with empty promises, selfish needs and our own clumsy, carnal atonements. And when we’re done and they’re dripping with our own worthlessness, we’re disgusted. We’re disgusted with the salty, used up, disdainful shell of a being we’ve drained dry and left hollow and lifeless. No one wants to fuck a carcass.
this fragile thing
made of glass
carried on high
by an effete Atlas
is both a catalyst
and a consequence
of isolated incidents
when extrapolated
and amassed
reflect the fractures
of his past.
“Ego, in and of itself, is a contradiction. It is both delicate and very heavy.”
Bootstrap Paradox: A causal loop in the context of time travel or the causal structure of spacetime, is a sequence of events in which an event is among the causes of another event, which in turn is among the causes of the first-mentioned event.
ancient wars ache within my arches
do not fight me, I am no gladiator
but the Colosseum
elliptical echoes of a fading façade
hold these human ruins as I crumble.
