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Tom McCone May 2015
every-body was a blurred dot in the threshing ocean
as i washed away; every wavelet playing sunder.
once,
concrete was the sea and i
failed to differentiate, blind,
for the light between slender limbs. disguises,
trees called lovers. silt turned pavement.

we mill about for bits. hearts turn to sand.
        by impact, to glass. one note sung, to shards.
                 the impossibilities of preservation:

anything that is real is fleeting. on crumbling precipice, daydreams spelled out on soft wish were then real, but now, like Siberian radio, waver through our bodies with little effect, and tail off, as time slips on.

but what hurt over concrete is a pale scar,
slurred over weeks, months,
towers spread news, but
-i'm not really listening.-

and footnotes tell tale of time & try & effervescent sentiments;
where we'd play seemingly meaningful games.
where we'd skin knees.
where we'd lie under seemingly meaningless stars, as foliage;
to freeze & bind,
some slower dance through
the corridors of our darkened days.
trembling hands, held at distance.

    where water cuts a warm hole between sky & feet,
     i set out on a separate path. at the root of
    this tower, sitting and staring pure up, failing to
   see the forest for one leaf, i tied strings to
    my fingertips, and just watched autumn come on quick.

but, slowing of pace makes little match for the wind. lives wind like snakes under the soil, but disentangle just as quick. primes become primitives, this much is certain; but, still clueless to the fact, i shy away from ideals & search once more for concrete, or truth,

or at least evidence.
19-5\1
Tom McCone May 2015
[i.]

as if slowly lowered back into the tongues of dreams,
in mahogany halls, between stone and glass, between a blink and your thought,
sung out, in the silences laid adrift, before and outside of words,
said all sentiments, patterns refused to belie:

a flurry of days,
offerance in as many hours,
what was found in a cascade of minutes,
later on in the light:
no second thought or first thought.
no gain or loss, no momentum,
save spinning breath, in
hurried paces.

colours of the sky, leaves, sea, all things passed or known; these sit in no compare to lakes, lain, steady under your wavering eyelids. as small wings fluster through limbs and heat, passages become tracts, patchwork, spread and turned fibre, glowing all the while.

no question, plain or perturbed,
where the lights of our lives hide.
just struggle on, in some semblance of consistency,
vacuous and shimmering.
out on the plains.

[ii.]

gold, was each fleck, sent from strand to
strand, to clustering distance;

i, traversing, footmark in sand in moss over
stone under branch & root system:

alive was more than a word.
how much more, was a better question.

but, what quantity counts? anything more than a palm's worth?
more than the passing strangers velocities?
more than the earth spins; what's worth counting?
all is no less or more than one fixed, glimmering
aspect of a dizzying world.

you, standing still, in between moments,
neither recognisable as stranger, or lifeline.
neither hurried nor fretted.
this is why you linger: for that off-moment, i could almost
summarise all i was not looking for, but had found;
to craft twisting afternoons, out on arid lines, through
dense brush, in between columns of oaken air,
and bark,
and low whispers,
and, sung out:

[iii.]

on some further day,
we'll crawl away,
apart or entwined, to
find some open scenery or,
at least, to escape the
concrete and dropped names,

but, steady on, for life
is just
a game
we play,
with little time to waste
on second takes,
or to hide away from the
breathlessnesses we lose,
or give escape,

and, later on, down the
beaten trail, we sing our
separate songs at the
same time, but,
harmonious we,
harmoniously,
end up singin'
all the same lines, anyway,

so, here i stand, and sway,
and disseminate
my fear and doubt,
which look so small,
so far away,
so far, i've taken
small measure to
put down what i
couldn't say
.
almost the closer
Tom McCone Apr 2015
we shiver our way, caught in rain-drifts.

in dreams, i
buckle knees, spark of flint
beneath
every unfolding seam,
every glistening lake,
each
tremulant dichotomy; we
sang songs, like:

the sky sinks, week by week, endlessly-
outcrop, crawling under tide.

stars caught, all in your eyes. all set alight.
all time & try.
Tom McCone Apr 2015
gut feeling: constant apprehension.
side remark in meaning;
eager set on nothing.
oh, hardly worth noting,
this ambivalence, in charcoal type.

impressed god, wild&
bewildered, singing
all the small while:

forgot the notions and mentions;
stuck in some gutter,
far-field,
semi-breathing,

semi-breathless.
caught mainly in absences. apologies.
Tom McCone Mar 2015
sunder sky. days follow.
traverse is but one
word or may
mean anything; all,
open season, like
rain under dawn,
over autumn. like
some footstep, laid down
in the dirt:
i,
in constricting rock tunnel.
hm. where'd i leave my mind.
Tom McCone Mar 2015
from another side of a window,
a shadow permanently cast:
disinterest licks lips. like i ain't
care to know. as if time were
our great merchant, as if wares
bought ashore were something
more than summarisable.

doubt, crushingly, descends.
the shore-lined, i, sent moral
and virtue on pieces of 'hear',
& a little less say. words
falter; left to hang, unimaginatively,
like candles under the thatched
ceilings of humanity. oh,
how we were led to the water.
taught to breathe. how were we
ever pure? some animal below,
some eternity at fingertrim.

can't believe this freedom,
of sailing above standing
waves. set-out regularities.
wrought up a smile with
alligator teeth. dust's song.

yet another 2:01am.
'Reason promises happiness; Feeling protests that it is Happiness; Sense alone gives Happiness. And Happiness itself is like dust in the mouth.'
Tom McCone Feb 2015
in a haze of morning hours, scrambling for paper, amidst regular intervals of tingling:*

days splintered by loveliness, sharp aches,
clustering thoughts of blue snares. summer's
decline. your eyes. tumult.

but, what can or can't be done? seemingly
everything. i just hide. second nature.

paradise by weekend, far reaches
before long. isolation held in
firm grip. substitutions for the
lonely: mud, rock, leaf, water.
simplicity.

and then, as clear as sunlight,
another visage of your eyes,
grand blue snares;
a warm, glowing scar,
i am full of glimmer and
a recurrent dull ache. can't
help it. don't stop.

affections ran deep like
trenches, swift like gutters,
rained upon, forever.
nameless breath sent to or from
this greater scheme,
the mechanics of my inner chest,
sorrow poured out over the stars.
all seemingly as distant.
i miss you always.

but, you, wild& capable,
carrying everything with a grin,
give no reason for lament.
you, out there, behind doors
or in thickets, thatching all
skies with rivets of joy.

and, i, under slow-beating sun,
ain't seen to smile so much in
forever. but all flying creatures fly.
as misery did migrate, so too
do fear and consistency, heartache
and certainty. such is the path the
world will always spin over.

so, i write out new and old songs
on rust-laden heartstrings. lay
lips on nothing, typically. keep on
breathing, singing, laughing and
spinning, as the world does, knowing
all the while that in the recesses of
my chest you'll be somewhere, spinning
all the same, and i'll just be here,
poring over paper, trying to
figure the right pattern, to
speak words language won't.

i'll miss you, always.
even as we speak.
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