Genesis pulled breath from dust,
as god, in his boredom, did deign to pour
life into the earth, to give a taste
of paradise. But a taste of fruit and the knife
of knowledge split man from God, so stone must turn to sand,
so ash must come of coals.

In fading light Adam tended coals,
pressing a trench with a singed stick into the still-hot dust.
Entrenched himself, pressed in a valley of sand,
watching suspended particles rise and fall and pour
down the long dune face, the knife
of his thoughts reducing memory to taste.

Saddened by grief, and still only a taste
of it's endless supply, he tended the coals,
watching an iron rod grow cherry red, soon to become knife
with which to split the rib of dust
in two, into which he would pour
all his love, would shelter from grief, from the sand.

In morning light, buried in sand,
sodden with the omnipresent taste
of decay, under the waves of light which pour
endless upon the still-burning coals
of the earth, under the dust
of time, Adam held the knife.

Sharp gasp and flood of red, the knife
cleaved the rib, flooding the sand
with red, clotting the dust
with red, the warm iron taste
seeping in, igniting coals
which Adam tended as clouds overhead threatened to pour.

From the blood that did pour
came new life, the red knife
left to gleam in the coals
While Adam sheltered Eve from the sand
and from grief's bitter taste
until dust returned at last to dust.

And still pouring out from that dust,
borne of that bitter taste,
of knife and coal, life has stilled the sands.

Tonight, the sweat of the earth hangs heavily in the thick August darkness. Standing in the yard beneath the fat buttercream moon, I muse on the emptiness of dusk, on the lifeless hollow of another quiet night.

At my feet, deep within a thick forest of rye grass, a hidden world writhes. The swollen moon has awoken the tumescent locust, who lunges, twitching through densely packed pthalo blades as he presses toward the siren song of a distant lover. Leaping forward, he startles corn borers and cabbage moths into flight which scatter upward like petals caught by the ancient wind. Abruptly, one petal is plucked from the sky, dragged back to the dark earth by the silent toad, soft pale wings disappearing within a vast and warty grimace.

Tangled in the rhizomes and soil below, earthworms labor, purifying the fetid remains of the surface world, while grubs feast upon the great network of roots, preparing for inevitable transfiguration. Pouring from subterranean colonies, waves of ants toil under leafy branches and plump rotting fruit, then return to their telepathic mother, abdomens distended with nectar and saccharin honeydew. Nighthawks and barn owls sit perched above, their gleaming eyes recording the squirming earth as they plan their swift assaults.

Amidst the chaos, amidst the living breathing wild I stand, a blind giant musing on the emptiness of night.

Turning to glance toward the sun
as she touched on the face of the lake -
All the strawberry hues that she gave
as the waves carried ropes of her face
crest to crest, all the glory of dusk
brought to shore as I traveled abreast.
Couldn't help but to feel that we raced
toward the place where the world goes to set -
She, bursing through 'tween the trees
planting freckled glances on me,
and I, falling fast from her sight,
laughing, tired,
as she left me behind.

The green combusts, the cherry sclerotized mask dances above
the invisible paper carapace.
Stuffed full with Rotten skunk innards and burning,
tongues of heat sweat away its crystalline hairs.
Aren is hunched and crooked, all teeth and lungs,
under the mixed halogens of suburban porchlight,
being bathed in bluescale waves from the
strobe of the neighbor's telescreen.
Ropes of smog pour from the slats between his picket fence ivories and get frayed.
I drink the filth, choking down the viscera of the vermin.
It doesn't seem to get easier.

Stumbling inside, my feet detach and I throw myself on the door
until I've locked out the sickly tide pool light of dawn,
and I'm rolling toward his bedroom.
Jolting and sputtering, and
grasping at the hands of the clock,
listening for the steady metronome to
count me through.
And then numbness.
I know the feeling, and next come the
pins, digging into my
fingertips and the pads of my
toes, and then I'm all body and silent prayers.
And I'm whispering sick thoughts to Aren -

"Those adrenaline demons
will do me in,
and if only I could relax,
and my dear mother
used to have a stalker,
and I almost got run down
by a car on the highway when I was five,
and asthmatics are five times as likely to have a
generalized anxiety disorder."

The adrenaline demons gather my tendons in pincushion palms,
tugging at the strings,
panicked arthritis and my fingers are
twitching and curling backwards
while I glare on with shallow breaths and cataracts.
The organs moan in the cavern of my body,
with thick wet air pouring from the opening.
I'm standing now,
a fetishized devil doll,
shaking out the pins
and the needles
and the sick splinters of glass
and the long holy skewers
and I'm breathing again
and I sit and
I breathe.

Consciousness,
mindfulness,
philosophical enlightenment -
Live for the **** of it.
Camus was right to breathe in spite of the tide of crushing emptiness.
The boulder gets heavy,
the bones grow weary,
the mountain is steep and we are steeped in irony.
For life can be deadly and death's rows of gravestones mark homes for freed slaves,
their crossed arms hiding scars
left by the teeth of nihilistic grief beatings and
surgery scalpels set to carve by
frequent false
alarms.

Sisyphus took but one break,
to hear the chains rattled from the gates,
hellish obsidian, vermilion flames licking lumps of silica grains
mixed with ash and a black tar splash.

And Orpheus sighed on the lyre and brought tears to the eyes of the most vile,
while Sisyphus
paused -
not long,
but a lifetime for those still free to subside
to dust, from blood and guts,
when their time arrives.

The trials of life,
the striving rites and lavish gifts of light to defy
the black and empty dusk still fail.
Eurydice grows pale as Orpheus turns to see her cheeks
losing every trace of peach hue,
eyes emptying,
lungs leaking their
last gale.

Struggling again, Sisyphus is sent
tumbling down the face of the great mountain,
grabbing gravel and sand and gashing gaps in his hard leather hands.
Bleeding ash,
not blood,
hot red mud dripping from the thick lacerations,
mixing with the sickening avalanche of wasted effort and waylaid plans.
Repeating the climb up the steep peak,
bones creaking like a clock's gears,
rattling off the seconds,
minutes,
hours,
years
until the watch stops its
panicked hands.

Until then we will toil unswayed
as we wear stones to clay,
carving winding paths in spirals up the mountain's waist.
No calm for those with breath,
no rest for beating hearts.
We must live in spite of life,
and then sink silent
to the earth.

Told me you loved me
but didn't look happy.
Didn't know what to do.

Now it's turned to midnight,
cricket song silence
under the crescent moon.

When it was fuller
I could see further
into the swaying night.

But now it's so lonely,
stumbling blindly
hoping for paradise.