i wake up to october morning darkness crystallized under my eyes

i despise my smallness
i'm not sure what i mean by that but the feeling is thick in my bones

i wish i had more gravitas or impetus or something else sternly derived from Latin and Physics
wish i had a lever long enough to move myself, to advance the plot
i needed to do laundry three days ago. i still need to.
there is a ticket in the glove box of my car. today is its birthday. it is one week old. its name is driving-while-talking-on-the-phone-to-my-girlfriend or another arbitrary combination of shapes that represent sounds and ideas at the intersection of the nature of human contact and personal responsibility.
i don't know because i haven't read it yet

i think i could probably be more than i am
(more what?)

it's hard to remember which day it is
they all sound like cars driving past my apartment and a bathroom faucet that always drips
relativity says that everyone else is moving and I am perfectly still
october is when relativity first opens its autumn flower self
some time in april I will pick its rotting blossom from my skin

i remind myself that lots of streams have dormant times when thirst exceeds ability,
that even great rivers sometimes choke with silt, reduced by so much minutiae
that it just takes a change of season to set things right again

i am waiting for rain

Flashing lights sweep past your face,
illuminating something you don't understand.
A beat so deep your core is rocked,
and everything sounds like an oscillating fan.
A thousand people around you,
jumping out of sync to a song with so many meanings.
and for *just a moment, you are not you,
but a lost soul glad to be home.

There's not a man
Who doesn't know
There's more to life than this

That God is gently waiting by
to greet us with a kiss

He truly only wants your love
Forgiveness has been won

His Love is free
our sins nailed to a tree
All done for us by his son

So not to surface after a torrent aunt Lorrell  was buried nine feet
deep on a hillside in a rural cemetery next to relatives with headstones
of Pauline, Bebbe, Margaux,  and Bror—common French and Swedish names.

Our bodies are temporary blossoms; family history says
Lorrell had four *******, Bebbe a glass eye,
and Margaux webbed toes.

I await.

The cram of stars in the navy-night
blue-light of summer solstice.

The majestic zodiac sprawled
across the ever-stretching sky.

Ancient definitions of myth
star-stories of pre-determined fate

mapped in the moment and place
of our birthing; such fantasies

such imaginings of stellar systems
and mankind’s significance.

Heavens and humours; rules and rights
from Gods to kings and subjects

All settled in an ordered Universe
until, curiosity, ingenuity and invention

observation and record, rigor and Science
with its license to question freedom.


© M.L.Emmett