[light.]

—And then I realize I’ve been breathing in through a cigarette.
Like again before, the violence of reality, its press of revelation.
Rush to write before it fades.

[drag.]

My Muscles could be putty (non anent my lungs
to soot); another year of breath and fight past,
another year to revisit me, its Tocks, it’s to
“Keep lithe to be left living after its descent.”
*******, I’ve been saying that for years,
—now that I’m older—*******,
I’m talking about every kiss I’ve forgotten,
that is, everything we lose on way to Adulthood.
It’s unique, the imago state; most betokened of
His image, right? We are social creatures, too.
This year descends with the sand-bag weighting of
its guests, demons, its music and oxford commas.
And like every student here, inches of brick between
their sod-sleeping heads—I’m getting puttied muscles.
Grandfather clocks could only measure the pace
of time dripping from filter to lip right now.

[drag.]

So, out with it! Outwith disclaim and excuse!
Did these calendars and turmoils bide
inside, waiting? And I carried on dumb?
No, I couldn’t face it. To have any brag
or claim on consciousness you couldn’t.
And brag is the stuff of home and placement.
Too, I felt placed, and set, and spoilt, like
a full-soled step was took each step.
And then the rain came Sunday,
I knew a full periphery again, all that;
And now the center, too.

[drag.]

Berthed I become as I imagine the sky cloud.
Fixin’ to rain war and revelation.
This earth is a battlement now, I’ll fight.
The rolled cigarette, violent reality,
sweetly slipped into my mouth.
I never want to sound conclusive
(assertions, pretensions): keep repeating:
I’m just a sensitive thinker.
No better than like a decade’s
worth of culture, every conclusion
becomes irrelevant and useless
like an old law. An old decade
is entirely the footrest of the new,
and just as sturdy as He makes it.

[drag.]

I never understood the value of a dollar
‘till inside a tower over the campus
I tasted the thousand-dollar crime
of Security & Maintenance for climbing
a building. Tuition’s, now, an inkwell;
($)30,000 unmarked, illiterate words
and too much say with one bottle.
Same, too, with one purchase.
But still the shame of confusion
is an education in and of itself.
Confusion as useless as the future
and old criminals acquitted.

Take on another [name], any other,
so that God can call out to you
in the night. Well, I’m learning.
between this poems…[sic]
I’ve learned that names are your own,
so name the un-cut, -construed past
and all it is you, for safe-keep, see.
I’ve learned that a capitonym
is God by any other name :
Hope, Love-lorn, Terror.

Monistically, I’ve learned there is only
us, the namers, for so our charge was:
whatever the man called each living
creature, that was its name. And
that’s gotten us a lot of places,
i.e. hubris, tragedy, undoing.
But it’s its very syllables that undo.
So whisper. Snarl if needed. But
tack that trouble to tree and let it bleed.
This is your deer, your grace and past.
Yes, rotting there is your former muscle
and ideals, all prelude to this very moment.
Just as real and violent as when alive,
yourself, and yet confrontable,
yourself.

[drag.]

[extinguish.]

[exeunt.]