How is it possible?
Echoes in the void
left by silent winter.
The ebb and flow
of time
Green language returns.
Take it as a sign
that the same old song
continues.
How is it possible?
Scarlet in the canopies,
soliloquy.
This duet,
you and I,
must go on.
Not without you,
but dancing to your tune,
wherever it’s heard.
Call met by response,
speak,
and I’ll hang on each
and every
word.
I will return,
I will return.
How is it possible?
Listen,
and you will find
the answers you seek.
You could, at any time,
crush me
inadvertently,
with a look
or a phrase.
Yet,
we find ourselves in this position
by way of
invitation.
Step right up,
take your coat off,
stay a while.
Unvarnished,
and in confidence,
our inner machinations
laid bare.
I could,
at any time,
disappear.
But there’s nothing to
run from.
I see the rust in your joints,
you ascertain that I
have bugs in my software.
It’s in our nature
to ask until we know,
but knowing isn’t understanding.
Trust cannot be simulated,
or substituted,
only experienced.
In so doing,
we could —
without realizing it —
lift each other up,
just by being ourselves.
Air abuzz with whorls of
black fog, thick diesel smoke
composed entirely of
highly aggressive horseflies.
He has arrived,
the infestation.
Mandibles gnashing,
fitting perfectly,
purpose built like lock and key,
into exposed skin.
A manifestation
of discordance,
the smell of carrion.
They land in your hair,
flap beside your ears,
brush against your arms.
Their presence felt
even when you don’t feel them
somehow elusive,
and ever-present
at once.
The morning star looms
in the dawn.
I bat the flies away,
but that only seems
to anger them.
Chaos for the sake of it.
How do we know
when evil has lost,
when evil has no plan?
Wake up,
and follow the rut downstairs.
Check the wall
of broken clocks,
and go to your favorite haunt
when the time is right.
It’s an acquired taste,
repeatedly smashing your head
into a brick wall,
but eventually you see
what the hubbub
was all about.
But you grow weary
in a moment of clarity,
and decide to spice things up.
You always do this.
Locals gather at the watering hole.
You take a big swig,
notes of minerals, calcium
and chlorine.
The bartender cuts you off
after 9 glasses
and an hour and a half
in the bathroom.
You spend half the night pacing,
reflecting on what you would have
done differently.
Wake up,
and follow the rut
downstairs.
It comes in waves,
volleys.
You’d think you would
get acclimated,
eventually,
but it seems to catch you by surprise
every time,
how much more the arrowheads hurt
when you try to pull them out.
Brought together not through
serendipity,
but now you feel their absence
so deeply,
you can’t see yourself without
them now.
A sorrowful farewell,
and the stemmed bleeding continues.
Shining blade in hand,
what good does that do?
The air hisses with lethal
flying fangs.
We have courage,
and heart,
and every poet and biographer will give us
the glory if we win the day,
but they have the high ground.
Distracted by
the flight of fancy,
a familiar friend
embeds itself
in the soft part
between your clavicle,
and shoulder blade.
It’s time to get out
of harm’s way.
Cooked books adorn a silver platter,
brazen.
Watch for trap doors,
and red herrings
that lead you down spiraling pathways
to dead-ends.
Birds of a feather,
buzzards, stick together,
so long as they all
get a little piece
of the rot.
Charitable of them
to self-deal
with their cronies.
They all move
in the same circles,
overhead.
They let you navigate
their maze, sniffing,
dare you to chase them away,
then become untouchable,
chickenhawks.
A blurred face
need not be saved.
I cannot tell
whether they’re turning a blind eye,
or looking
right through you.
Management left some notes,
the show needs more Poignant Moments™️
it needs approximately 25% more
human emotion.
In the editing booth
effect precedes cause,
if we so choose.
Throw in a few, oddly familiar
hearty chuckles,
compel the viewer
to react authentically.
I’m sure the audience
was itching to laugh,
I’m sure,
but nothing wrong with a little help.
No pleasure is truly guiltless.
The fourth wall
is merely pantomimed,
the watcher and the watched
enter an unspoken pact,
to affect one another
or disappear altogether.
Jeers, scorn and rotting tomatoes
don’t phase us at all,
that’s showbiz.
Stick around for the commercials,
they’re, in our opinion,
the best part.
Have a laugh,
we insist,
they’re infectious.
Like cotton-candy
standing up
to a deluge,
sometimes these things fade,
quickly sinking
into the mud.
And sometimes they move in phases
as your recollection shifts,
like the coastlines
warping more the closer you peer,
just as you try to quantify them.
Tenuous already is our grasp
of the present.
The past does not preserve well.
The memories need to get out,
to stay fresh
but take up so much space
and don’t always make clean reentries.
Sometimes we compress
the things we’d like to keep,
or contain —
but they’ll usually lose
their original character,
or exaggerate it to absurdity,
whatever’s worse.
Left alone,
they may consolidate,
as a skewed synthesis of disparate events.
Or they collide, leaving hollowed-out husks
of days gone by,
flinging detritus
to where it never was.
In spite of this,
one tiny detail you find
in daily life,
that you probably forgot about,
can bring you right back
to where you once were
some time ago.
We use these pieces of experience
as planks to build stable footing,
keeping them flexible lets our platform’s
withstand the test of time.
Wheels within wheels,
interlocked
eyes that dot the rims.
10,000 outstretched arms
invite all comers,
wings encircle a glowing and ascendant
body.
From many,
a single entity.
An atomized chorus,
moving in synchrony
without consciousness,
nor dreams nor thoughts.
Order and chaos,
coalesce to form an
improvised symphony.
Each piece,
individual, indivisible
and interdependent,
living communally
serving the whole and
acting in concert.
The being,
older than time,
makes no demands,
states no pleas
only meanders
through darkness.
And we,
looking through our own reflections,
wish we could ask it
what it sees.
Absent-mindedly,
I took a bite
before you were ready,
and thought nothing of it.
I’m so sorry,
so sorry.
The wound I left behind
oxidized and irritated.
You could see it on my face,
the part I excised
now sat on my tongue,
refusing to budge
blanketing my mouth in
choking cotton.
The bitterness pervades,
I have to throw it all away
now.
I was careless,
what harm I’ve caused
what a waste,
what a waste.
Nevertheless,
thank you for the reminder
that things can be a lot
sweeter
if you just
let them be.
The File Pile 