Out the sleek window
Of the sixth floor again
In Dely Brahim
The scene shifts back;
A long-forgotten actress, I’m placed stage front
A fantastically convoluted Baroque set all around
Vistas broaden behind me, into the distance
So many ornately painted side-wings stepping back
Over-constructed, swelling hills
Teeming with terra-cotta roofed houses; patched,
Faded scrub pasture
Flattened, stylized, staggered against
The distant scrim of a
Daintily picked-out, smokey gun-blue
Mountain range. This
Amazingly contrived
Mediterranean opera-stage set
Encloses me
And I strain to remember
My lines.

Continent bound – water
encircled, I ache
for audible
effortless
mediocrity

Jabbered exchanges
fluid vowels
spill unrecognized and
still lap at
my yawning consciousness
Words now sink
never surface
Drown
unknown
Oral habitudes,
usually uncomprehended
Watered
speech
bubbles up, from
unfathomed
depths I am submerged
constantly
Subsumed
by misunderstandings

bored
of
bombs
listless
repetitive
strikes
dull
news lulled
heard
again
and again we
are worn
down
out
left
wait
(ing) for
some
thing
any
thing
other
than
this.

it has become
cliché
we know
the once delicious
alien
names are
only
everyday
not
fiercesome
not
fiendish
not promises of
blood
drenched
daggers anymore.
these names were
standards
rally around the flag wear the flag
proudly
pin-striped lapel on porch on bumper
these names
fail
fall
flat
we must seek
something new flavored with
just the right taste of
wet
iron
new
rallying cry to
gather in
constructed
terror
behind
architecture
unknown
shelter
united deflected covered wrapped
against
this
shiny new promise
seductive new enemy more
toothsome
sharper
and
we are re
focused dis-
tracted
bound to-
gether
against
new pre-
fabricated
foe
with tasty new name
and we can watch mouths agape
drooling
fascinated
seduced
titillated
the new-fashioned series waiting for
next
exciting
episode
while outside
elsewhere
plump ravenous generals
masticate
digest
defecate
small
carcasses
empty
skulls
s­hredded
skin
under a
building-powdered
once golden
dome

I want to tell you this:
it is as though I care
to pierce to slice
have you see
my petrified indifference
flayed skin spread
but
I skewer myself
only
and you don’t notice
can’t notice
will not notice
couldn’t care
wouldn’t care
more
or less
and so I dupe myself
with my own baying
anger I *****
from gulping at scraps and feeling
fawning gratitude
for tidbits
I
am
your
dog
panting for whatever
is left
lapping it up
with slobbering tongue
nosing around
the floor where
I don’t belong but
where I allow myself
to be. I may
be your
dog
but I won’t
beg
anymore.

I accept
only
wish
to change what cannot be
changed
delusions of
ecstatic
union
fade
smothered
under
silence
disinterest
triviality
joylessness
wouldn’t be minded
if the brief
glimpses of
affection were
less rare
but maybe
they wouldn’t be so
noticed
cherished
guarded
shepherded
into my secreted soul I
forget
on purpose
that which I cannot
swallow
learned to
eliminate
the day-
to-day
deflect
small building
damages
yellowing
psychic
bruises
or absorb
dead
(ening) shrivel
(ing)
cells of self
I wanted
to share
but now
can
not.