The windows fog with the breath of familiar altitude
the static whispers of the chit-chattering multitudes
lays waste to a quiet evening—dead long ago like visions
of cerulean spring—a product of a wanton King's violent misrule.
His people shout, from the cracks of their hidden homes, aloud:
“What are the consequences of the things we do?” I cannot say,
for it is nonsense to say, to say it is nonsense—that is to say,
nonsense it a part of us, too.
There was once a boy, born among the lilacs, who asked
his father, envy caked on his tongue, why nature seemed so
antagonistic.
Self-important.
Why flowers and trees get to grow forever back, while human flesh
feeds like decaying leaves upon the ground. His father
turned to him with a heavy brow, weighty like morning
upon the skirts of a dark equinox, his voice like the bombastic
ticking of choral clocks, and says:
There is a Black Friday sale tomorrow, in the early morning, you should get some sleep.
Somewhere, there is a stump, destined to grow,
in desperate want of the solemn secret mortals know.
A body falls to the ground in the dust
of high noon, and a fire catches in the mercury
thatches of a mourning moon. How curious to be
so regal in the final days of the rays of
a life lost too soon. For it is the period that marks
the sentence, in all trial, error, and repentance—such
a riled life can only end in terror. A solitary log
rots by a grave, crumbling, like crumbs from a
glutenous mouth, under its own weight, made mortal
by the life it gave to those who made it a hollow bone.
What is a king, after all, without his proper throne? As
if to say “I am with you”, the headstone crumbles too:
a swoon in the steadfast pursuit of brotherhood.
Such a woeful camaraderie to be so commonly
misunderstood.
It is dirty business spying life under the hood.
The machinery of it all clacks like the loose teeth
of children—or is it the elderly?—upon
linoleum floors. Its gangly pistons screech like
the constant closing and opening of doors, bringing
or keeping what is to come or has been. The complex
mess drips like crustaceans along the coasts, scuttling
out and in along the borders of three great unknowns.
Somewhere in the past rings a phone. Dialed with the
intention of reaching me at home. Somehow it
knows my name, spelled with numbers, punctuated
with questions wherever I may go. And in what seems
like such a long time ago, someone found a way to
digitize these electric questions over immense space, things
that dare not—ought not?—be asked face to face, sent first
from a heart, then with eyes, delivered cold like steel death
through a receiver, thick with the taint of the electric
deceiver—and I hear its call. I hear it. I hear it and I
answer, static lips chatting in the vernacular. I answer,
and for all that toil, it is nothing spectacular.
An electric message never dies.
In a forest far removed, a tree sprouts its ten-thousandth leaf.
Somewhere people are awake, someplace else they are dead.
Tomorrow morning is Black Friday, and I was told to get some sleep.
But I think I will forget. Perhaps it is we die for nothing but relief.
the static whispers of the chit-chattering multitudes
lays waste to a quiet evening—dead long ago like visions
of cerulean spring—a product of a wanton King's violent misrule.
His people shout, from the cracks of their hidden homes, aloud:
“What are the consequences of the things we do?” I cannot say,
for it is nonsense to say, to say it is nonsense—that is to say,
nonsense it a part of us, too.
There was once a boy, born among the lilacs, who asked
his father, envy caked on his tongue, why nature seemed so
antagonistic.
Self-important.
Why flowers and trees get to grow forever back, while human flesh
feeds like decaying leaves upon the ground. His father
turned to him with a heavy brow, weighty like morning
upon the skirts of a dark equinox, his voice like the bombastic
ticking of choral clocks, and says:
There is a Black Friday sale tomorrow, in the early morning, you should get some sleep.
Somewhere, there is a stump, destined to grow,
in desperate want of the solemn secret mortals know.
A body falls to the ground in the dust
of high noon, and a fire catches in the mercury
thatches of a mourning moon. How curious to be
so regal in the final days of the rays of
a life lost too soon. For it is the period that marks
the sentence, in all trial, error, and repentance—such
a riled life can only end in terror. A solitary log
rots by a grave, crumbling, like crumbs from a
glutenous mouth, under its own weight, made mortal
by the life it gave to those who made it a hollow bone.
What is a king, after all, without his proper throne? As
if to say “I am with you”, the headstone crumbles too:
a swoon in the steadfast pursuit of brotherhood.
Such a woeful camaraderie to be so commonly
misunderstood.
It is dirty business spying life under the hood.
The machinery of it all clacks like the loose teeth
of children—or is it the elderly?—upon
linoleum floors. Its gangly pistons screech like
the constant closing and opening of doors, bringing
or keeping what is to come or has been. The complex
mess drips like crustaceans along the coasts, scuttling
out and in along the borders of three great unknowns.
Somewhere in the past rings a phone. Dialed with the
intention of reaching me at home. Somehow it
knows my name, spelled with numbers, punctuated
with questions wherever I may go. And in what seems
like such a long time ago, someone found a way to
digitize these electric questions over immense space, things
that dare not—ought not?—be asked face to face, sent first
from a heart, then with eyes, delivered cold like steel death
through a receiver, thick with the taint of the electric
deceiver—and I hear its call. I hear it. I hear it and I
answer, static lips chatting in the vernacular. I answer,
and for all that toil, it is nothing spectacular.
An electric message never dies.
In a forest far removed, a tree sprouts its ten-thousandth leaf.
Somewhere people are awake, someplace else they are dead.
Tomorrow morning is Black Friday, and I was told to get some sleep.
But I think I will forget. Perhaps it is we die for nothing but relief.
