Conspirators

I can only tell you that you will never be satisfied with this explanation.

You are looking for a permission-scale.

An absolution.

I am only willing to offer you a truth that sets no one free.

An obligation.

You have not expected.

This invitation,

slid under the door

along the linoleum of your aging kitchen.

My words-

A noxious gas,

A mix of chemicals that grow appendages,

claw open 

your eyes,

sear your nostrils and retinas,

and scorch themselves as cave markings

In your memory.

We are not spared the knowledge.

A duty is ours to accept, always.

But even if the duty is kicked out into the cold winter evening, the door slammed in its face, and the locks fastened in a chilled finality-

The shouts of what we leave outside

will echo.

First Aid

 

Little bit of salt in the wound

I inherited it from a passerby 

6 degrees of separation

Won’t save a festering wound.

Won’t alleviate the sting

Or the burn.

There is pain enough for you.

There is pain enough for me.

There is pain to spare.

Never a shortage, never for us.

Little bit of soap in the wound

To clean out the foreign bodies.

The burn is guaranteed,

But the wound is in a spot

An angle, a pull of the skin

Where relief is unlikely.

Original Opening Song to The Lion King

 This week’s theme/starter is the word “hierarchy.” 

Rules for existence begin and end with knowing what to eat and what eats you.

No man is a king of

this jungle.

We may have the crown

and the scepter,

even a self-fashioned throne.

All of it

poor substitution

for teeth,

claws, and

speed.

Our prey, too,

must remove its finery,

depart from a regal state.

Send away its royal court.

Our weapons and our intellect

Our substitution for teeth, claws, and speed,

a far more effective method

at this scale.

Eat and be eaten.

Muscle to ash to soil

to what is eaten for strengthening

what has outlived our own usefulness.

The Real American Classic

 Another product of the weekly theme series for the word “Destination.”

Gold standard 

Fused with partial sunlight

Sneaking through the dense foliage 

Of trees in full bloom.

The shade,

Patchwork as it is,

meets with the swaying

of the trees

from a noncommittal wind.

The sound of an unknown

creature-

Critter or Magnificent Beast

rustles the path.

All appears

as if we have found

the hub

of the great wheel,

and we

are witness

to its mighty spin.

Here.

Now.

Destination Take 1

I’m trying something new for May. I’m taking weekly themes and writing to them. Here is one of the pieces I worked at whole exploring the idea of “Destination.”

Slow, rambling river. 

Flashes of gentle rapids;

A brief flash of white.