The sweat was dripping down my face
and under my skin, pulsing like veins
Time is a funny, blurry sort of thing
when your mind can’t keep up, when your feet take the reins

You’re doing what you thought couldn’t be done before
since you just wouldn’t stand to close any single door
I’ve made my point, I’m standing strong, but increasingly it seems
your eyes are closing
fleas are buzzing
and you don’t know what you’re doing anymore

There’s an odd sort of irony
in living to let your brain turn off
in working to avoid having work to do
in fighting your muscles just to keep still

And when my feet have dragged me home
they transfer their will to my hands
possessed to pull out chains of thoughts
I didn’t consent to give away
and my eyelids fan the darkness
while everyone else has gone to sleep
I hear my brain whisper my name
but the work’s not done, I must not sleep

As far as the world has revealed to you
If you slow down, you fall behind
but in sparing moments when the fog lifts
I can see with clarity the change I’ve travelled through
I find my legs are far too long, my arms are strangely strong
you hadn’t noticed before, but I hardly fit in my bed anymore
how long has it been since I’ve been me?

I want something
I can't
have you ever
seen the sky
so blue

you forgot red and yellow?

What is the meaning of this?
She certainly wanted to know.
A man on a bench
a step to the side
And surely those clouds will bring snow

She was returning to work
as many around her
And pondering this as she went
What was it to know
the brush of the snow
Have no one around but the ice and the snow
What thoughts could he have spent?

Yes, but she went on her way
walking away
walking away from the man on the bench
Would he have done the same for her?

The sidewalk was filled with lonely people
they surrounded each other in thought
They dreamed of sadness, sorrow, defeat
But none would touch an other.
None would touch another.

The iridescent silence
resides in every hole
Every nook, every branch, every absence
aware that it should know

That the silence should seek the silence
and dampen living sound
Exert its out numbering presence
and flush disturbance out

This is how the woods exist
in the mercury morning night
It is the one time of the day
when sound loses the fight

Everything moving is alien
a probe disturbing time
Everything uneased by nothing
an irrationally influenced mime

Then "until" is the gospel of life
until strings ignite the sound
When those fallen silent resume their strife
and until their movements resound

But under the velveteen mirror
under the soft grip of ice
Air becomes solid and trees shadow white
in the mercury morning night

I'm in a hall made out of cards
my going ever narrows
through its walls I see the halls
of others travelling near

Theirs are wide and tall and sound
for why must this be so?
For if I stretched
reached through my cards
surely they'd all downfall

But I refuse to stop.
Refuse to stop.

Inching through my hall of cards
stops are many frequent
as ice slices deep in frame
but still I will go on

I walk and walk and walk and walk
                 and walk and walk and walk and walk
                                  and walk and walk and walk and walk

Should I stop?


Maybe this hall is to fall
and then I would be free
but if it was not, is not
then wherever would I be?

Would I break down all of it
the whole careful facade?
Would I ruin all of it
by daring to stray from the path?

no, no
I better stay.
no, no
I better not stray.
No, no, it's not the hero's way,
but...
No
No
it's better this way.

~
                         He knew in his heart there was nowhere to go.
                         He knew with his eyes there was nothing to know.
                         He knew with his hands there was nobody there
                         He knew from his lies there was no one to spare.

                         He listened but didn't hear
                         He saw but didn't look

                         There was nothing for him
                         Naught in the air
                         not a thought, not a limb
                         that he could feel
                         that he could conjure
                         He was desperately calm
                         and there was nothing to listen

                         It might be a city
                         it might be a glade
                         It might be a person
                         it might be a blade

                         It was the same, the same
                         the same without saying
                         Without anything.
                         it was all the same
                         He had himself
                         and himself was fraying

                         he wasn't swimming
                         they weren't moving
                         he was unseeing
                         they saw the bench

                         A bench?
                         No, he was sure
                         absurdly unsure of nothing

                         Why was he trying?
                         He wasn't trying.
                         He could feel his limbs
                         but they didn't belong to him
                         Is this it?
                         The bench
                         It's always the same
                         Yes, he thought,
                         it is the same
                         The bench
                 Nothing ceasing didn't matter
                 Hands and lips, fluttering
                 fluttering on, eyes staring on
                 There was nobody, nowhere
                         The bench.
                 Nothing.
              What did he know?
           What did his hands hide?
       The moving statues, were they the same?
                         The bench!
   No-
                         The bench!
Wait!--

I’ve been walking around inside-out
for a few years now

if I fall
my heart just may burst,

so my nerves won’t let me near you.

Impatiently the flakes of snow brushed off the dust on his cheek-
Half of the still face of a man lying prone in a thin plastic seat
His heart in his cavernous hand, his loss in the bustling street

She nary spent a moment's stop to take in the man on the bench,
But the brush on his skin lingered in her pensive walk to work
What was it to know the wind's desolate blow?
Have no one around but the ice and the snow?
What thoughts could he have spent?
Yet
she bled into the distant crowd covering up the concrete

They went about their various worlds entranced with disbodied sorrows
Taking the chance to dream about the far-off worlds of others
But no raw comprehension of the man on the bench or glancing sidestep could stay;
One by one, heart to mind,
All of them walked away.

I stopped beside a summer brook
and could only see what the winter took
the banking stone was laid out bare
a few scattered lichens here and there.

But standing at my kneeling feet
one tuft of grass the wind couldn't beat
its leaves were calloused, stained winter-green
face shining skyward, labors unseen.

I stared at the gnarled thing
as the years grew thick in my throat
I couldn't remember its first little shoots
But here it was standing, with deep, deep roots.

Fit in a new gear

*****, *****, *****

but no clock is perfect
This one runs a little fast
a little strained

*****, *****, *****, *****

and now the metal's creaking.