Sometimes you just can’t.
That stuff you might use,
tool or clay?
It isn’t actually there.
Limbs are liquid,
move only with unseen tides.
Echoes…
Lay it out, here
I’ll consume it,
as if a hero.
Please
go ahead and fall behind,
if you’re gonna…
Is that you,
wandering off, to watch?
Longing to lubricate in?
Or is it your spine,
pushing you around, again?
Hiding it?
You can’t hide it!
So, contain it!
It can’t be contained!
Restrain it!
It can’t be restrained…
Smother it, deny it air
and then…
like that,
it doesn’t need to breathe.
Surely, this life will stay quiet.
This life,
will navigate
and, finally,
go
unnoticed.
Is there a name, for that dimple
that cradles the eye?
Is it, “thought-catcher”?
But my thoughts, don’t worry,
won’t amputate like an ice-pick.
It will only hurt, just a little,
like milk, stretching the ducts,
as baby takes his first suck.
I am the babe
and the milk
and the blood,
self-possessed,
live wholly and crisp
and awake inside of you,
a current of singularity.
In there, we lead and follow.
In here?
In here,
we parlay with the spirit,
order and re-order
the plan to win that stare.
I hear it coming,
and toss my head back,
and with all faith
and honor,
open my beak and screech,
“Me first!
I am lovely, I will grow,
I will fly, I will hunt,
I will make.
Feed me!”
I already view
that desert clay
will start to weep,
and a landscape of glass
from rooting deep.
And then with two hands
you serve me risen bread,
salted of your sweat.
You see, this breed, can blend
from a menu of methods,
created monuments,
many newly made...
We, willing or not,
have already spawned, you see.
It can’t be undone.
I will advocate,
like a fertile goddess,
the born-now.
Last shall be first!
I already know
how I’ll be
indulging the pause
in between
(to be longer, already longest)
I don’t know about you,
but I’ll be hunting,
and I don’t really care
how I bag it, cause
I don’t really need the pelt,
only the liver, ravaged raw.
On a landscape
of milk and honey,
I’ll blaze,
leaving breadcrumbs,
although, I won’t be back,
just find another way.
The maps I make will hang
on the walls
of the ready-room
That frontier?
It will forever
be named for me,
that landmark that you scale
for the lookout.
Yes, children, the war I start
will, someday, be won.
But I’ll be the first casualty.
In the meantime...
Here I am, in now, and
there are certain side-effects,
inevitable.
You see how I’m compelled?
I hear an intricate sound,
like latticework.
It tones, and every time,
freezes me, where I stand.
It turns my head.
Like an innocent child,
I think to myself,
“I must find its source”
But it’s coming
from everywhere...
A bystander
might just notice me,
tipping my head one way
and then the other,
trying to repeat the results.
The ringing in my head is
indeed, visible to them.
While marveling
why I’m see-through,
I confirm that nothing has changed.
I’ve always looked a monster.
I’m broken,
Like the light,
On the prism of the morning.
I’m dropped sharp,
Point to the center
of my spine...snapped…
My eyes are shrunken, cause,
you see, it’s still a shock.
Everyday, I’m yet hoping
the sun won’t rise.
Rode all night
on a vivid actuation,
over your brow,
down the bridge,
the slender side.
But linger in that spot,
“thought-catcher”,
where I imagine,
even think,
that I can smell your tears.
Now my eye is loose,
sweating like a glass of ice.
My tears fascinate,
but their scent?
It repels,
You pull away,
narrow your eyes
and knit your brow...
Funny...
All those many times
and I still don’t know which
is that secret I don’t keep...
there are so many…
I’m sorry?
I lost track again?
I’ll try harder?
Question me all you want
I won’t know why.
Useless at the table,
look right, look left,
and count the minutes
until it ends.
You say I’m a stranger?
Well, you already know
more than I do.
And while you’re at
the knowing,
do you suppose
that you can tell me
how I might get home?
It seems that I was spawned
in nowhere
It is sure, I was spawned,
But just as born, I was broken
Not a fault, un-fixed
but split,
splinters from a log,
fractured like the light,
through the prism
of the morning.
Walking.
A homing beacon.
Dead, indeed.
Once or twice, escaped it
Now, sentenced to it.
But I shrug my shoulders,
to make it feel real.
Give in to the anxiety
and ride it to elation
A win feels like extra.
It can cost more
than what it’s worth.
But the provenance!
It rattles when you shake it.
Currency you can pocket,
for later.
That sign you fire out
you might not smother it.
But hold those little shards
in your fist.
You might just
slip away again.
To pay your ticket.
A wide-eyed spectacle.
Deafening waves
and bone-rattles.
That fabulous spasm
before your demise?
It will last you the rest of it.
The thrill of the explosion,
As all of you scatters out,
to radiate.
Total penetration,
Like it was before.
Oh, say you don’t remember!
Dead indeed.
Beacon.
-SLH - 2018
Shut up, Stephanie.
I'm free range. Don't fence me in. Don't sell me down-river....
Creative Commons - SLH