Each one, a part

 

The saw warbles as it inquires about the age of trees.

Whistling while it works

Merriment

In the motion

Repetition 

as a source of transcendence

as a source of Oblivion.

Doing their part 

To accumulate all of the numbers in the universe,

cramming them into a dirt-caked, mostly empty light beer bottle. A film of spit and disappointment lining the bottle’s bottom.

Long since worth finishing.

Cram it full of what might as well be infinite.

Try to seal the bottle and throw it

end over end

Into the limitless flotsam and jetsam of the ocean

Bobbing its head until it descends

to join shells

dreams that have shriveled and sank

Next to the skeletal remains

of some leviathan who once 

was the man on these streets

Let the numbers leak out

try to count their number

a guessing game

as the tide rises

as the saw catches on the wood.

Alive and uncertain.

Hear the symphony rise and fall and rise and fall and wait for the curtain before you commence

Applauding.

 

Your Dreams

 

You Dream at night

And those Dreams are like sitcom television

you have a predictable pattern and a laugh track

A loop of Dreams

Driving/Lost Wanderings

Airports/A lost passport

The alternate paths of life/Lonely ministrations to the soul

Deep fear/pure suspense

The wailing/Siren song of misery of a life not lived well

Spreading its warmth through your vocal chords with a luxurious disdain

a longing to be removed from 

flame and pitchforks and the general screeching sounds of metal/

Meeting the axe with hands in supplication

seeing which one will be the first to give in to the demands of the other.

Scope of it

Some lament 

Warbling out of me in bird song

As the wind starts to settle itself

and the Sun is shifting its angle-

Contorting in slow, diagonal positions-

A gentle descent.

My Notes held at length,

Letting the sound do the lord’s work.

My grief in the pleasant murmurings of the later afternoon.

Throwing passing swipes at the still branches of the trees

Swirling around the crowns of long shadows

Trillings stir from my crumpled frame’s rasping song box,

Pushing notes 

Into existence

Becoming a melody

Pitched into the air and echoing back from the other mournful aviaries,

Sobbed into music,

clipping the stillness

as the sun says it’s goodbye

and the song becomes a symphony 

in the darkness.

Ecosystem of a Grievance

 

I nourish the malcontent by eating a spoonful of rotten prunes each morning

while the television yells in my living room’s general direction. 

I’ve been hiding all of the ill will in a dank, clammy basement with a mud floor. 

Letting it outside on overcast evenings where the moon is a faint ring that whirrs, fading, aged fluorescent crescent. An aura around a darkened circle. Sterile road leading into town, lined with streetlights hinting at their own fuzz of light.

Before the crisp air can wake up its senses, I cram it back into the dark corner. Kick it. Use coarse words.

I turn on my car’s AM radio and feel it between the voices, crawling out of a far away canyon mixed with an auditory haze. Played through a mute. Buzzing with rage a size too small. A little deeper, into the well I threw a rock into last week but I’m still waiting for it to hit the water. For the satisfying rush of the surface tension breaking.

I am starting to worry.

If the well has gone dry, where will we end our thirst?

The prunes writhe inside me.

Stretching their clenched fists and slamming into my vital organs.

The television and the radio swell their chests up. 

Make their voices blend in the sound of appliances left to run on the highest setting. Wail for relief.

I am waiting for the well-maintained shoe to drop.

Waiting to hear the sound to tell me what to do next.

So much of me is ready to finally Let loose.

Own it.

Now.

Zen Ruination Pt 1

 

let the rest

Take care of itself,

the circle meet its end

of it’s own volition,

the age old questions

passed from our scholar fathers and their scholar fathers remain unanswered-untouched and unblemished by the ravages of brainwork,

a rock falling down a chute forged in the shape of the rock,

smooth,

made for the moment and her indeterminate visitation,

despite the distance traveled,

coming and going,

unchanged.