You told me she had died in a hospital bed
With her glasses on
So that she could see Death properly
And I picked away at my breakfast,
Which was pancakes and strawberries,
Trying to imagine
Her squinting ahead at Him
With her dying eyesight
The pancakes were dry and store-bought
And my plate was a pool of cold syrup
And flavorless,
Half-eaten strawberries
When I had finished,
And my hands were stained with the sweet blood
And you took my place,
Picking away at soggy crumbs.
How was that one small step,
that toe press to the unknown world,
with dust as soft as sleep beneath
your rigid sole?
How strange to be alone.
In your airless world you walked,
a bubble man. A diver surfacing
beyond the imagination of
coelacanths and arctic squid.
You gaped like a fish, perhaps,
astounded at the airless air.
Perhaps your lips were tight,
your nostrils flared, calm
and infused with wonder.
Perhaps your heart beat harder.
You Columbus,
a launch pad your springboard,
a world of dust your new land.
I wonder if you wished to
slip your glove. To lie face flat
to your desolate ground, to sink
fingers in and gr
Jack
-------
Laid low I see, Jackie.
My modern day Quartermain
Boadicea
You were my angel,
mountain and scripture.
I could ride the rails with you, Sal.
I could pick
the urban asphalt scabs and
sup on it's bitter blood.
In eyes
k a l e i d o s c o p i c
with delirium tremens,
the nails in my nights are sugar cane
(a delicious forest of wonders and terror)
Jackie, Sal, Ray,
wide-eyed child of the railroad earth and Carnivale America
dogs and rats-
Is your blood dried up (20 proof)
still churning in my gut?
Are you my shoe size?
He watches two lovebirds disappear to break to new directions
A new frontier, a cutting edge background to the crossroads split
And hospitals chasing around tangled heartstrings
(or was that the other way around?)
He sips his coffee in listless silence
Hears voices talking against white noise
"Come, let's dance around his broken heart."
100% self-inflicted (it was expected anyway)
He was too busy drinking tea in gardens of exotic flowers
And (un)synchronized circadian rhythms
To realize he was losing on his own
He was too busy looking through a one-sided mirror
To realize it's better to see through a looking glass
But it's not th
buy the war bonds to my body
buy tickets to the air raid of my soul
trenches on my wrists
fight the somme across my stomach
machine gun pock marks
bombs, my flesh shakes
no land,
only lines to cross
and three miles of blood and barbed wire marshes
protect the soldiers
but there are no defenses
the western front is failing
TO ARMS!
shells that are empty
(I am empty)
the skies
(my eyes)
lighting up with flares
there's only smoke left
up there
(clouds my mind)
we left our masks behind and now we'll all go blind
packed in here, piled in
like cattle
like corpses
where is the axis?
we've been in here three days.
is t