Author: randyribay

The Frozen Mud

poetry

I saw at my foot footprints, en-
cased in muted mud, mid-step mire set silently within
A topography of time, a grey ground frozen
The echoes of shoes–seemingly size ten–a lasting last impression
A patch work of paw prints, wildly weaves widely again and again
The bike tire’s vast, violent arc cuts with impatient determination
Across orphan patches of untouched earth. My eyes enliven
This sculpted ground–shadows casting imagination!

Marvelous movements of time and space, run, ride, reel, and hark!
See the life that lives on lunar land: when you think
the play’s performed, this spectral stage stirs the heart!

This makes me wonder: what traces of invisible ink
You left upon the blue-blank pages of that air afar;
And should I see could I read or would I–sink?

how to build the worst place in the world

poetry

1. hide the sun. put it under the bed, or in that vent in the back of your closest. just hide it. hide that sun better than you hide your porn. and keep it gone so long people forget its color forget its job forget that we orbit the fucking thing.

2. throw a big sheet of depressing gloom over the sky. should be the color of communist-era cement. the uniformity of the mind-numbing texture should be vast and soul-crushing.

3. let it rain. seriously. rain. go ahead and reroute the oceans to pour directly from the sky because that’s how much rain you need and how long you’ll need to let it fall. get those fuckers wet. make sure it soaks through their shoes socks skin so their fucking bones turn to yogurt. let it rain so much their weather stations start reporting the percent chance of sun and make them take their sopping umbrellas everywhere even the bus so when other fuckers sit down their asses get wet as well. standing puddles should be so deep passing cars kick up tidal waves.

4. turn down the temperature. turn it way down. go ahead and bring the atmospheric molecules to a near fucking standstill. it should be so cold skin dries cracks bleeds without provocation.

5. get the wind going. let street signs trees and people stand at seventy degree angles. make it so windy windows shake nearly shattering. do that annoying shit where you make their umbrellas snap inside out before sailing away.

6. call it boston.

Little Exercise

poetry

Think of a crowd gathering for an execution
like an explosion playing slowly in reverse,
listen to it inhaling.

Think of how she must look, the sentenced,
hands bound, chin set, stone gaze cast somewhere
indefinite on the horizon beyond gunmetal waves,

where a ship may be disappearing,
its sails filled with chilled wind, waving goodbye
beneath an overcast sky, bored and impassive.

Think of the blade, blood-stained and worn
impatiently hanging, suddenly revealed
as the child’s scapula.

It is quiet for a moment. Then it sighs, slices
comes to a sudden wooden stop–
mortal dam unstopped, her blood reaches short for the sea.

Now the people passionately cheer
eyes alight, fires in smoldering faces,
squeaking and gibbering into the midday.

Think of someone on bent knees in an empty church
hands held in supplication, quivering lips mumbling desperate prayers;
think of him as on a precipice, permanently.

AT LAST WINTER’S PASSED

poetry

at last winter’s passed, the sleepers awake
at last squirrels, birds, green emerge
blossoms on branches, rivers run fast and high
movement in the bones, music in the eyes

at last there is skin, bare arms bare legs bare feet
at last black blonde brown hair falls free, words spit quick unseen
people step off the sidewalk, swim in the warm grass
the city has emptied, its concrete gravity gone

I smell life, how I long to live
I smell sky, it screams of coasts
I smell sun, we fill our lungs with light
ready to exhale and create new continents

darkness lost as last year’s dream
all is open, outstretched and inviting
like a frisbee, carried by a strong breeze,
we disappear over the horizon.

unfamiliar

poetry

i’ve kept friends like apartments
changing every year or two

and when i return it’s not the same

the walls have been repainted
and redecorated with pictures of smiling strangers
the large oak table we carved all our names into
has been irrevocably replaced
so i leave
my memories and faith
unstable.

turn it off.

poetry

i can’t watch this
suffering
let it scream into my consciousness
burning reality searing sorrow
i can’t read this

i can’t do a goddamn fucking thing

my life choices dictated
by a dedication to help others
render me helpless

i can’t fly there
i can’t donate
i can’t do anything

for anyone