The shrine for the unknown god,
Whomever it may be

by Federico Garcia Lorca*

The weeping of the guitar
begins.
The goblets of dawn
are smashed.
The weeping of the guitar
begins.
Useless
to silence it.
Impossible
to silence it.
It weeps monotonously
as water weeps
as the wind weeps
over snowfields.
Impossible
to silence it.
It weeps for distant
things.
Hot southern sands
yearning for white camellias.
Weeps arrow without target
evening without morning
and the first dead bird
on the branch.
Oh, guitar!
Heart mortally wounded
by five swords.

Her face
Her face is lit
By the candle she holds beneath it
Because she is afraid of the dark
But as the candle burns down
So does she,
But she is afraid of the dark

I think this is my goodbye letter to you,
but, please, don't be mistaken,
for I don't intend on forever.
I count the waves one at a time
and wait to see
if the blood of cardinals is as red
as the color of their feathers.

I never wish of parting
but ends are ever inevitable.
The moon drinks all the water
and spits it all back out again.
Flowers eat the sunlight
and the sun will eat them back
when it gets hungry.

I say goodbye to you
in the way that fireflies die.
They burn with light in life
and the end is never seen
for the daylight takes over,
and we see the more colorful things
instead.

I whisper that I will see you again
to myself at night
when I'm alone.
And stack rocks in chains
just because I want to knock them down.

Goodbye.
Because puzzle pieces only
unravel us in the heart.
And writing good words only
gets you a fancy car
with no one to spill things in.
Goodbye because flowers cry dew
Goodbye because carbon dioxide is eating the green
Goodbye because I'm only 5'8" and
will never be as tall as I want to be
Goodbye.

I can't promise you I'll wait.
I can't promise God will not laugh at me.
But I tell you goodbye because
I'm stuck here.

Leather and whisky smoke
Whisping around yesterday's memories
Curling around your face in a haze
And you
Setting the world ablaze
Leather and whisky, smoke
And ashes shifting
That's you

What a terrible shame that I have such specific taste in people.
There are so many great ones.
So many attentive ones.
So many who would admire me, touch me, listen to me.
And yet at the end of the night I am lonely, not because they leave me behind,
But because I leave them behind, to wait for the few people I know I can learn from in the ways I need to.
The problem is, I seem to spend most of my time just...
Waiting.
I could be that person laughing in the bar,
I could be one of a crowd, talking,
Unhindered,
Unburdened, for the moment, by solitude.
But I am so horribly magnetized. I am so horribly aware.
And I go where I am pulled by whatever sleeps inside my bones, that stirs for certain voices but not for others.
I follow their echoes down alleyways, and at the end of the night,
I have walked alone for miles, and told not a soul my thoughts.
Because in truth, my taste for people is not only specific.
It is venomous.
It is bitter.
It is what tears taste like, or rain, when you've been bowed beneath either in silence and the drops roll down to kiss your lips.
And perhaps the sadness, I could handle. Perhaps I could accept these moments of clarity as transient, as all encompassing in their brevity.
But,
See,
The worst thing isn't to follow and be left behind.

The worst thing is choosing not to follow.

To turn and quietly take my leave, and stay silent, and ask no questions,
Even when they crawl up my throat like smoke, raw and urgent.
The worst is to feel a sudden spark of connection in a liquid world, that slides over my skin like water,
And then to watch it fizzle out-
Puzzled, always puzzled, and always, like a child,
Surprised.

fractured rays pass through tattered treatments
the broken fast moving clouds ever changing
shadow creatures dance across my desk and skin
playfully morphing from recognizable shapes
to distorted images of madness
my concentration only hastens the changes –
thoughts race to match the sky
bounding effortlessly from subject to object
objectification to subjugation
absconding subjected objectify-ers
subjugating the obtuse –
swaying tree tops pepper my field of view
a light breeze plays among the needles
damaged branches dislodge and fall
in the ever-changing Fall –