Lived in the big city my whole life
Never had a need for a gun
Contemplating a more rural setting
Quieter and gentler perhaps
Problem is
Will I need a gun to feel safe
Out there in the black night
With only crickets for protection
The more I think about it
The worse it sounds
Plus you have to drive everywhere
This was a bad idea
Two splintered halves,
a race, two gallops,
a sword, the clatter of
armor that does not exist,
and the two selves
pummeled and thrown
off-course, spiraling to
the earth from which they
both emerged.
More at http://spinrockreader.blogspot.com.
In a scrunch of white sand we filter silica.
We tinder our hopeful fire into a scorching furnace,
scatter grains within its wayward flame.
You take a pipe, dip into the fever, pick up molten lovemusic for us.
You cool the singing notes on the cold marble I prepare.
They harden on the outside while the inside melts.
You blow the music outwards into a bubbling symphony.
Before you face fire again I ask if you’ll roll the new bubble
over my confetti of multi-coloured petals.
You turn away, saying you have no time for frit.
I attempt to spread blue, yellow and pink powders along your path.
You avoid them too, insisting you wish to make
something clean and clear, like starlight.
You sip the water I offer to slake your thirst.
You use a jack to shape our fused forms over a paddled base.
I ask if I can tweeze out the outline of your lips
but you place a diamond shears in my hand
so that I can fashion the plinth
while you pester our bubble
into the shape of us.
Later you transfer all to a cooler oven.
Tempered like that, our two selves will not crack.
We will step out into the world, splendid and sharp as obsidian.
The weight of the world
Is heavy upon Atlas’s shoulders
We should thank Zeus
That such a burden assigned
To one of immeasurable strength
Hercules
Samson
With great power,
Comes great responsibility
Like these
Resting is not an option
We have shown
We cannot control
Nor contain
Ourselves
In all our greatness
Unable to support
That which we are
Lighten the load
Even gods become weary
In welldoing
Mayhem
and there is no grieving
no party
we are relaxed
sleep and snore
and wave flags of gesticulation.
The victory drowns
in voices of dead
and hammerings
of the heart.
A cap, a pant a pajama
are emboldened symbols
of death vanquished.
The walls of this small room
always closing in
getting ever so nearer
The roof gasping
searching for the last breath
There must be someone on the outside
of these brick walls
A giant
pushing, always pushing
these lonely walls toward me
squeezing the last of what life is left
suffocating the search for the last breath
the room a piece of paper torn with scribbled ink
Crushed and crumpled
by the hands of a giant
At the mercy of omnipotent palms
some call it God
I call it the Self
The shackles feel tight
how did I even manage to
get them on?
And hands which craft words
are responsible
for the blood that
rivets on streams
hands that hold each other responsible for love
drudgery
and hands that dictate laws
responsible for death’s shroud
all in one go
hands upraised, venal, hands that pray
quality of sins,
and hands are murderous
hands are sane
and hands which craft clever, witting words
are in a way hands
that are a quality of love.
Death blows, hands move
in shadows, hallucinatory dreams
hands after all in no man’s
land
heralding quiet platitudes.