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Orion Schwalm Jan 2017
Wholeness.
Whole-grain fullness.
Plump gun powder keg.
Ready to ignite.
Stillness.
Still felt helpless.
Ignition counteractive.
Writhing in the light.
Wilful.
Triumphant.
The better part of something.
The whole respect of nothing.
Bring sleeplessness a cure.
Rend ugly new allure.
Inspect the intro.
Respect the retro.
inflate the softened stone
a breath will bring you home
Orion Schwalm Sep 2016
S is the 19th letter of the alphabet.
I had to count twice on my fingers to be sure of that.
It glues together many, many words.
It fixes people to the walls.
It shrivels fruit in the bowl.
It sticks us all in the same soup (****).
Let's swim.

You have 19 reasons to die,
written out like manuscripts in manila folders  
  populating a small cubicle containing your confidence
   pasted to the walls, and neatly nested on the next door desk
     at least you told someone.
The logic of your feeling breathing life into the spreadsheet,
The simple clicks of order covering up the shame of dead weeks
Day in Day out working toward a little more
Waiting for the future where the ability to break out is yours.
Cage around each arm. Suffering in small doses.
Never overwhelming the epicenter.

I have 19 reasons to die.
Scrawled in sidewalk chalk on 17th street.
  Ringing in the ears of all my close relatives and their next of kin.
   They say, "Hurry up and usher in the next generation so we can stop worrying about fixing yours."
The crumpled cover letters in my compactor spell pure love, and the reasons it's never noticed.
  Simplicity in disarray, a life of static colors. Repugnant sorrow odors.
I am the only town crier left in this town.
  Always complete but never fulfilled.
The sad sequel to a Mexican standoff with a self-referential story.
  Narcissism and narcotics.
  Nihilism and Mnemonics.
Space and the stuff of the stars.
Love and the war of the heart.

S is the 19th letter of PSEUDOPSEUDOHYPOPARATHYROIDISM
No it's not but what a great word.
No it's not but aren't you glad you tried to count?
No it's not but aren't you satisfied with yourself for trying to decipher?
No it isn't and wasn't it worth it to try to speak the sounds?
No it is not and wasn't it the sibilance in your mouth worth every second?
No it is not thank you come again have you had your fill when we're only 19/26?


Reasons to live:







Seemingly unneeded. We're here aren't we? Doing what we could only be meant to do.
R is the real 19th letter.
One more would have been S.
But you'd never know if you didn't count.
So let's count.
Ready?
3...2...1...
Dedicated to a dearest.
Orion Schwalm Apr 2016
When I believed in monsters
And hid under my bed from the tooth fairy
Back in the days of lizard chasing for hours
Fall was the best season.
Fall was everything and everything was Fall.
The seas of leaves, Falling down, scraping knees
The feel of  the breeze and tire swings hanging on oak trees taller than fear was deep.
Spring water tasted sweeter than sleep.
Dreams were no different from real life.

All was Fall.
Falling down, falling up.
Falling in, falling out, falling in-

You sometimes remind me of the skin I shed. Bit by bit with every trip.
Building better birdhouses. Bruises, scars, and callouses.
Falling down to the ground. Fall leaves all around.
Scraping knees raw. Growing back...and forth.
Growing in and out.
Falling.

Catching myself halfway in a reverie.
Coming out. Coming back into the house.
Coming up the hill, growing up still.
Feeling like falling in love wasn't real.

But you sometimes remind me



of when I thought it was
Orion Schwalm Feb 2016
Take me to where the wild waters vanish...

Love to feel your happiness...

Promise me...
I wish, I wish...

Each time I think I'm falling, I wake...

Floating on a clear lake...
Orion Schwalm Jan 2016
Solace.
Solvent globe.
Run away again.
A life, still small.

This was supposed to be a sort of ventriloquistic reverie, disguised as a mimetic purging of all shiiiiiiiiiit in the body and miiiiiiiiiiind.
Oh well.
Here's the story: A bug- not one of any high or low blood-
began his run among the trees
at dawn.
Stopped along the riverbed-
Sang a song of Sparrows Nests and Lions Manes-
Gave the chorus his very best and made attempts of quieting the refrain-
Fell short of a fourth verse and ended the third-
So as not to disturb the delicate force of terseness in the words-
with a cadence akin to the angel's wingspan
decadence falling like skin in the snow sand...
Feeling smaller than anyone he had ever felt...

He crushed glory into small packets and buried them in a time capsule
for generations to come.


17 Years Later
A still, small life.
During the swarm of cicadas,
I awake.
Opening halo to blurry globe of light.
A sound so silent it burns every inch,
Couldn't help but wake up.
Couldn't help you when you asked,
Now in hindsight...open haloes to a grasp on love.
Inside the oven life. Light's like a buried knife, deep inside a mound
of earth.

Turn around.
Go back in the ground.
Dig deep. Faces, yes my friends, asleep.
Tear them from the blackened soil.
Forests of fire, lakes of oil,
Unearthing everyone I know to be alive. ALIVE LIVE. NOT INSIDE.
Get out of the earth, it is not your time.
Grandfather face. Good, you remain. Your remains are welcome.
Dissolving in the globe.
Exhuming corpses full of life.
Dancing the dead dance in the silent night.
The music of nothingness guiding my way.
All the **** night and nothing to say.
Nowhere to run, nothing to find.
Back into sunlight with those of my kind.


"Please wake up."
"Please wake up again."
A small still life.
In the meeting place I see.
Double globes, expecting your face.
Constructing your mind, full of me.

What am I doing? I'm memorizing your eye twitches. Every time a tiny particle of dust, called a thought, lands in the ocean, a million muscles contract, calling the thing dust, and noticing me.

See it's all one thing. The dust, grass, air, video games, steak, Salmen, Salwomen, bears. Riding a bear, bare-back, and totally ****. Being inside a room, or a cave, craving tall glasses of milk, the cow urinates in the grass, and the steak melts in your mouth, and the globe dissolves your body, while my eyes open and close, taking away your halo, and giving you a pair of human eyes instead.

Every time I open my eyes. It's all one thing.
The meeting place where I see my friends.
The circle of life, the beginning and end.
The smallness of death and the land of the love.
The sense of your presence below and above.
The time that you held me, and I held you.
This is the world. The cradle and tomb.

It's a part of you, that's clear enough. All I wanted was to see the whole thing.
Dedicated to good friends.
Orion Schwalm Dec 2015
As she swayed to the tide of music nobody heard
The ghostly rhythms of my own forgotten soul caught FIRE
Tap dancing tenaciously on the tightrope of the void
Calling forth cascading cataracts, callousing over the mind, a cacophony of Mallards, flying south for the winter,
NEVER AGAIN TO SEE THEIR MOTHERS.
She tied my brain into a rope and swung across the chasm
Laughing like a Mameluke who had just discovered his feet.
The camel was left behind at the gate
The Babble went on till the break of dawn
Till it stopped.
And collapsed.
And felt weak as a Sunday Noon Tide Carolers
Bunchcake, Fun and Dry, Severing again and again the Hair twine
Randal Slappy Blimp map candy man Cadillac attack
A BOTTLE OF WINE AND TWO LEFT FEET LATER
A scumaladdoodalla frigate-splayed poodle-cups
When finally she agreed to let me into her preschool
I had already given up the hope of ever having a career in the arts.
Bean friends. Are the only friends. That accompany you. To heaven.
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