from hearing the roar, i’ve become it. what cold, cold solace. to become what you’ve always feared, impervious, detached, even my skin betrays me. another tool, weapon, gift, like muscle and bone, cheap tissue and cardboard, serrated knife and short iron pipe, keyboard and screen. just another thing amongst others. even worse to watch others as a series of machinations, expressions of complex equations, ultimately solvable. all reduced to a matter of time, desire and persistence. even my daughter, my son, clockwork, steady but their course is circumscribed. not to say i get no pleasure from them, or any of it, but this clarity of vision that i had once been able to turn on and off as needed reveals constantly inner workings as ratchets and gears and springs that can be plucked and tuned and reset, just like that. everything as “just like that.”
look at me, same as i never was.
wired into my teeth
i race the highway into twilight, blow out windows, tires, crash barrels explode, careen off dividers, sparks light the cigarettes in my shirt, my chest smokes, butt of my last wired into my teeth, let me tell you a story: once when i was young i drove mad just like this on christmas eve and late into the night, the reasons why are for another time, but on a turn like this at eighty, it all welled up and said, “enough” and i let go, i let go of my life, i let go of the steering wheel, and the car went straight as an arrow from right to left, from the slow lane to the passing lane, and the head lights were so bright, the concrete so clear, i could see where one segment met the next on the bend, the rust of the pivot, i was going to be right there, but it all shut down and said, “ENOUGH” and i could not feel my hands and yet there they were, jerking the wheel the other way, skidding rough across the shoulder, the bumper catching a piece of the divider, my shoulder slamming off the window, horns blaring or me screaming, and i whip the car back steady and somehow get off the highway and come to a complete stop until it finally gets quiet enough to breathe again.
face value
everything i say should be taken with a grain of a salt
and a shot of tequila
rotten apple smash
no comfort anywhere, blunt and stupid, cored out rotten apple rolling onto the highway, crushed and smashed to chips for little hands, nimble fingers, no muscle, all bone, gingerly picking them up, juice running down a toothless grin
chill sets in
chill sets in the bone to prickle the skin alive
forearm i-ching
grit of a scab to be picked with fingers callused and bruised
the i-ching in his forearm says, and you’d do it again to feel anything
pattern recognition cracks the night a kaleidescope of skin and rust
muzzle
“Take us under, now” -The Frames, “Dream Awake”
we force limbs into our words, packed, bulging and something spirals out
twine wrapped between clenched teeth, unravels a distance from the tongue
and desire, hung out and tied tight behind the skull, a muzzle
to curb the instinct of chewing through our own hands
nothing more truer now
nothing more truer now,
our breathing’s done, his dying’s done, your lying’s done, her crying’s done.
nothing more truer now,
your hope is done, her fear is done, our faith is done, his pain is done.
nothing more truer now,
her season’s done, our night is done, his hour is done, your moment is done.
nothing more truer now,
he is done, you are done, she is done, we are done.
the rain spills
and the rain spills from the sky to quench our thirst, we choke but we do not drown. rain seeps up from the ground to our ankles, our feet drenched but we cannot move, to our knees and still we cannot move. rain bubbles up above our foreheads, tables move, chairs move, scraps of notes scrawled with something we meant to say to one another. rain floods out the windows, the roof breaks open to the sky, and we stay at the bottom, scrambling for the floor and still we do not drown.
out of proportion
you figure yourself out
of one thing and into another, fashion
yourself with gestures, try your new self out
for size. it all seems out of proportion.
you’ve been much too good at this,
fashioning your anger into something
new. drawing blood, drawing on paper, drawing
breath. your son’s fingers clasp at the space
the air makes between your chest
and his lips. your daughter cuts through
the room like a sprite laughing
at a funeral. you figure yourself into her
laughter, squeeze yourself
into his fist. it is all out of proportion.
out of figuring the size of the ball of your fist
to his own, your knuckles turn white, nails dig in
an impression into your palm. your daughter
rushes to a full stop, holds her hair back, bends
to kiss your son. the gesture leaves you
raw, the base of your spine aches,
your son’s limbs come to rest on your ribs.
figuring where to go
next, smoke leaves your mouth
gasping.