I once swallowed a bucket whole
In an attempt to gain a better understanding of what it is
To produce fresh water
Having subsequently spent 10 hours in a well
I emerged with damp socks
And an intimate relationship with both darkness
And mud
I still have not dug deep enough inside myself
As to hit a fresh spring
And I have yet to successfully summon rain from my fingertips
I look for new ways to give life
a leap for life
for some is a literal
bullet dodged, or a grenade avoided
but for you a leap for life
is a mere plane flight.
a ticket purchased
such that life blood can stop being
clotted at the source
and with new oxygen flowing to the brain
hope arrives and strikes you
startling you like the bullet would
had it made an impact on the other
for whom that life-giving leap was not metaphorical
and struck by hope, you’re taken aback
and furious that you stalled — knowing the steps required for forward momentum, for life, and not taking them.
new life, a change, bought cheap, rearranged;
sometimes one leap’s too short for “in”, but never-wager folks don’t win
hear hear a year’s worth
of sentences
whispered to oneself among
the frenzied crowd
crawling at 8, 12, and 6
buzzing all around a
universe to their own
sentences, sentences,
that perspective’s glare
won’t penetrate
the naivity of this year to come
the rotting of the innocent fruit
and agony whispered all the same
cyclical breezes,
migratory patterns,
and what to the man flipping
through the paper on a park bench?
and what
to the bastards in the alley
or the beggars behind the
woodshed?
The station man said there were
dragons flying in with the northerlies,
for to terrorize like every other
imaginary monster, but
they’ll be swallowed too
when Quetzalcoatl comes
A losing streak an infinity long
we will eat our dead when
burning is no longer cost
effective
Even our saints will be caught
with flesh in their mouths
Even our
mothers will grease the wheels
while the age-addled trumpeters
volley their breath against the silence
war chariots march onto
the swamps, t’wards the dragons
with eyes watching backwards
waiting for someone to save them
these are the days of our lives
the callous cannibals crowing
for corpses with
the great imperial shield
on each chest
the signature verifying
the combined hopes and dreams of
wall street, main street, cork street
, no street in particular
We saw the pyramids fall
Saw the Empire catch fire
saw the machine work its gears
while its printing presses spewed
While its furnaces consumed
While its bonuses were paid in full
There was gold in the
hills thirty
years ago.
Now the hills
are out of bounds.
Now You and I And
God and Everyone are
starved for soul-food;
we languish in our hunger and
we settle for tenth best
Perhaps we will delete ourselves,
or be deleted, or be (continued)
Nothing will change until it changes.
But there are whole truths for this year
and last year
and the next:
-Love,
-Passion,
-Greed,
-Terror,
-That knee-jerk reaction you make
when you think you’re going to die,
-we’re not gone yet,
-you don’t know where we’re going,
-you should keep the good ones, and
-you shouldn’t let poets
lie to you
One by one the ants go marching on,
do they remember why they run?
Poor little buggers,
Dont have a soul
the sieve and the sand 