"bovine" poems
They hate the shadow of the bird
over the high water of the white cheek
and the conflict of light and wind
in the salon of the cold snow.
They hate the bodiless arrow,
the precise handkerchief's farewell,
the needle that keeps the pressure and the rose
in the cereal blush of the smile.
They love the blue desert,
the swaying bovine expressions,
the lying moon of the poles,
the water's curved dance at the shore.
With the science of tree trunk and street market
they fill the clay with luminous nerves
and lewdly skate on waters and sands
tasting the bitter freshness of their millennial spit.
It's through the crackling blue,
blue without worm or a sleeping footprint,
where the ostrich eggs remain eternal
and the dancing rains wander untouched.
It's through the blue without history,
blue of a night without fear of day,
blue where the **** of the wind goes splitting
the sleepwalking camels of the empty clouds.
It's there where the torsos dream under the gluttony of grass.
There the corals soak the ink's despair,
the sleepers erase their profiles under the skein of snails
and the space of the dance remains over the final ashes.
7.5k
The clouds he welcomed,
and let them play
While the sun descended
to kiss his rugged make
The winds would rage
yet come to him
as a petted bovine
tamed at whim
Like a ***** giant
stood the mountain tall,
in brooding silence
as he towered above all
Then the rains came, and
brought a stranger home
She was none like them
yet she seemed their own
In her winding bends
the mountain heard
the frenzied beats
of a heart so stirred
As the brook looked up
and the mountain down
she found calm
and him, storms found
The clouds he asked
how he could move
and mustered his will
for a measure of stoop
She looked at him
with a drowning feel
clutching at her banks
and digging in her heels
The bend showed up
like an eternal curse
carrying the aching brook
like a solemn hearse
One last time
she looked back at thee
the one she killed
in setting free
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 11:29 PM UTC
Fare thee well by islets of time,
Beauteous blooms of fragrance; of thyme.
Gliding symphonies beckons thine eye,
Gentle minds float toward sky high.
O cues sung by the siren, allure!
Once, fusion of reason borne pillar.
Twice ponder, may our paths entwine,
Thrice to act, unlike the tranquil Seine.
Like angelic enigmas par Euler,
Soar upon the painted auric frontier.
Air fresh: an ebullient morning dew,
Wisdom: moisture for the thirsty few.
By spring fountain, if thou art inclined,
Bright sparrow among the bovine herd.
Lo, argent quarry of dust- liquid guile,
Behold, product beyond thunder- gale.
Scents of lavender assail thy sleep,
Euphoric dreams, we welcome with glee!
Sleepy horizons, a glorious dawn,
Morning filled with a trillion suns.
Some time, some day: travel the stars,
Mortal shackles unchain my awful maw.
Pupil of Aristotle, Darwin, and Vinci,
There lies truth; a transient hierarchy...
Aug 28, 2010
Aug 28, 2010 at 5:18 AM UTC
deaf and dumb
are the passers by,
the visitors as well
gladly would I fill their ears
with the wisdom of weary worries,
tedious torments, but I fry their meat,
smashing it until it screams
the sizzling symphony wafts to my bulb
stirring memories of the steer, the ****
the beatific butchering, and
the killing fields of my youth
while others see only my hunched back
and wait for their greasy grub
I ask why there is no atonement
no sorrowful song for the slaughter
of young ones in faraway lands
who fell under the “noble” knife
or
the bovine beasts whose skulls
were there for the bar, that dropped
with sublime indifference
as it stilled their
magnificent silence
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 11:23 PM UTC
Preventing contamination,
A constant challenge in cell culture.
Contamination not only affects,
The culture in question and,
Costs time and money,
But also endangers the reproducibility of results.
No cell culture problem,
Is as universal as that of culture loss
Due to contamination.
Generally, contamination may be separated,
Into categories of microbial,
And eukaryotic contamination.
Examples of microbial contamination include:
Bacteria (including Mycoplasma),
Fungi and yeast;
Eukaryotic contamination includes:
Cross-contamination with other cell lines.
Bacteria, yeast and fungi,
The three more common types of contamination,
But luckily these forms are often detectable,
Under the microscope and,
By visual cues,
Like colour or turbidity changes in the medium.
Mycoplasma is a small genus of bacteria,
That lack a cell wall and for this reason,
They remain unaffected by common antibiotics.
They are also difficult to detect,
With standard microscopes,
Due to their size, about 0.1 μm in diameter,
And the fact that they often attach to host cells.
To prevent contamination,
Use 70% ethanol for disinfecting,
Equipment & surfaces,
Related to cell culture.
Sterile filter the media first,
Before bringing to the lab.
Fetal Bovine Serum,
A potential source of contamination,
Contains mycoplasma.
Filter it at 0.1 μm, or,
Gamma irradiate it.
Aseptic technique,
Necessary.
The laboratory workers be the last,
But not the least source of contamination.
Teach them the ideal laboratory practices,
To ensure asepticity in a laboratory.
Dec 6, 2016
Dec 6, 2016 at 9:02 PM UTC
Ganders...gargantua--ensconced in far-fetched space...
(attrition)...LOOK AT THAT LINE...LOOK AT IT...
ROUND THE CORNERS OF PERPETUITY...predilections.
A soul's inalienable fracas...on bend and knee...hop...and
whoop...miasmic gargoyles poppy-wreathed...
for all-too-lucid dreaming...chanting etceteras of bare riff raffs.
Golden breastplates...weeping willow wings...empurpled--
fending fang trumping lines of: yuck, cluck, claw and kook.
...Listless eyes...alphabetize...think a blind oracle's informed
absentia...holy and bovine.
Redolent airs...perspiration of spume's most distancing shore--
eyepieces for the specks and logs in the oculos of brothers
and sisters.
As dust to dust doth not settle...heart's yonder score...nay cease
of interstice...off-world amorousness.
Gather ye yarrow sticks...hurl them at days...roofless arcady...
live into the spectra of their worlds, come friend or foe...Fate's foundling.
Lines strung as prayer beads...curs-ed beads...forget-me-nots
enclosed in letters baiting Long Farewells, in the great literary
correspondence of authored and Author.
...Ye gorgeous gargoyles come perch and push.
Persona non grata...the wide world...unisex prodigal...All--returneth.
LOOK AT THAT LINE...LOOK AT IT...(attrition)...ROUND THE
CORNERS OF PERPETUITY.
NEBULAEIC FANFARE...come perch to push...lo...ANGELS!
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 12:35 PM UTC
They Call It Heresy,
We Call It Genuine Science
We designed the genes' primers,
Ordered them along the oligomers.
Our aim is an elaborate one,
It involves molecular cloning,
Sequence characterization, and
Relative expression analysis of
Bovine Trefoil Factors.
Now we hope to clone the gene,
The gene which is of a bovine origin,
By extensive working hours input,
And bearing in mind the risks,
Of not getting the desired output,
The possibility of failure always therein,
But pregnancy, healing & immunity it's governing.
Three types of trefoil factors there are,
TFF1: It suppresses gastric carcinoma,
And also helps in pregnancy,
TFF2: Helps exclusively in cancer research,
TFF3: Helps exclusively in pregnancy maintenance,
And also our prime interest.
After cloning the genes,
We have to sequence them,
And after characterization,
We have to analyse them,
After relative expression.
Dec 8, 2016
Dec 8, 2016 at 12:40 PM UTC
I am lost, in my back yard
flailing my fists, boxing with god
I want to know why I am content
with living in a private box
knowing I could very well be buried in one
when my thirst for life stops
I live as if I am already dead
instead of growing, I rot
I should be describing ink blots
in a gown wearing sandals and socks
because I am about as understood
as the circles in the corn crops
I am a mushroom growing from
what the bovine creature drops
while people around me seem like livestock
my body is spent
I lay in the grass
and it feels like pavement
I cannot change this
or do anything to prevent it
stress comes and stress goes
my heart is the entrance
and my brain is the outlet
I filter everything
and I am a conduit, a vessel at float
touched by the waves and the breeze
carrying me towards the suns glorious beams
like Icarus with delicate waxed wings
I am sure to fall short and drown in the sea
until then I will learn to appreciate
the commodity of breathing
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 1:52 AM UTC
The golden girl
bathed in the water,
and the water turned to gold.
The weeds and branches
in shadow surprised her,
and the nightingale sang
for the white girl.
And the bright night came,
clouded dark silver,
with barren mountains
in the umber breeze.
The wet girl
was white in the water
and the water, blushed.
The dawn came without stain,
with its thousand bovine faces,
stiff and shrouded there
with frosty garlands.
The girl of tears
bathed among tears,
and the nightingale wept
with burning wings.
The golden girl
was a white heron
and the water turned her gold.
3.4k
species massacred for grazing
cows rule the world
the Brazilian rainforest
is now 80 million acres
of open range
supporting our demise
one cheeseburger at a time –
6700 gallons of water
is the cost of a big mac
when you factor in growing grain
giving cattle drinking water
and processing meat
peak water and peak oil
mean nothing when chewing cud –
more than 50% of greenhouse gases
methane from bovine flatus
without a single environmental group
working to stop this plague
instead they openly swallow
government lies about carbon
and the role 300 million United States citizens
have in saving the world of 7 billion
by driving less and recycling –
I laugh uproariously at the idiocy
knowing our karmic retribution
can only be extinction
like so many other species
we’ve killed off to make room
for more livestock agriculture
when everyone knows at this point
we can survive and thrive
off a plant based diet….
I’d write more,
but I am starving for
a bacon double cheeseburger –
Sep 22, 2015
Sep 22, 2015 at 1:23 PM UTC
American city, your roads make me gasp,
Hold my breath with cancerous anxiety.
Your sidewalks,
Ancient ruins of time passed: A failed optimism for Utopian desire:
A house, a yard, a car for every person.
Now derelict, termite infested, but rented.
Chlorinated chemical water runs through rusted, moldy spickets to
Rinse pesticide seasoned vegetables.
And yet they remain so tasteless.
But who cares?
Suburban middle class zombies?
Created with media placed propaganda.
Born and inoculated with DisneypepsiMccocacola ideologies.
Oh Wal-Mart,
how we love your homogenized Chinese products.
Oh America,
how we love your multi-million dollar cathartic films,
They bring my mind to no place and inspire nothing.
Your theme park inspired retail caters to any identity I desire:
I am a professional,
My wallet lined with the best credit cards,
SUV, Hummer, Super boat, designer label, mall bought,
bleached teeth smile, with slick greasy hair style.
I'm cool, I pay for the gas.
Beep your horn, and rev your engine.
We are at war with each other.
Everyone get out of my way: road rage lifestyle: compete or die.
Big screen television dream.
Bought it at Target.
Open my cupboard: Macaroni and Cheese, delicious.
Ambian, Prozac, antibiotic, Listerine.
Collagen bovine beauty:
Manicure, pedicure, dye and wax
Acrylic nails, hair extensions
And silicone sacs.
Oh, American city
How we want to steal your money and **** your blood.
Chop your trees and cement your grass.
American city you are dead.
Jan 11, 2010
Jan 11, 2010 at 6:22 AM UTC
The rivers channel rain
The way I channel pain
I begin to see the futility
In denying pain's utility
Pain takes on a ****** nature
And becomes my intellectual savior
I shatter the mirror
And swallow the shards
The pain becomes clearer
So my ******* get hard
Glass fills my lungs
They're profusely bleeding
From words that stung
Being my daily greeting
***** shoots out from my gun
When I cut myself for fun
My hose starts spewing
Once vultures start chewing
It's the only way I can cope
When it's pain that gropes
I live in a world that mixes *** and violence
I live in a world that mixes *** and silence
Where the painkillers
Become the pain creators
And our life's filler
Is being pain traders
A bull has charged through my library for a decade
At this point every bovine movement cuts like a blade
He creates pain that lasts
When every day becomes my past
I had a dream
A sorcerer controlled my body
But he only wanted pieces of me
Bones started snapping out of my skin
Blood spurting everywhere
I awoke to ***** down there
I guess life isn't always fair
When I dream to avoid stares
The real pain comes when I care
When the privileged boycott
The impoverished boy's cot
He learns to ********** in the streets
And gains an appreciation for feet
Feet that trample
The pain is ample
When people powerfully push him away
So he decides to go against the grain
But there's no peace to be attained
And all he's left with is pain
Oct 20, 2017
Oct 20, 2017 at 4:45 PM UTC
Good old Gregory Goose was Gladder than any Gander could be and not Just because Nelson the Ninja Snail had said he was "JUST-DUCKY" ! This was a Very Special morning for Gregory Goose, in Fact it was yesterdays Super Special situation that made His Delight so DELICIOUS. The comment by Nelson the Ninja Snail, had simply added to His Glory! Gregory's Special Situation Had been the Unexpected Announcement that HE was to be Named "TEAM-CAPTAIN" for the Annual "Hog Wallow and Here's Mud in Your eye" CONTEST ! ! "Oh the delight" He thought, "I am to be Captain, after waiting all these years". "ME" he exclaimed ! "Captain of the South Forty Blocks"...... "W O W ' ! ! At the most convenient time of the day, Harold Hippo, Candy Cow, Curtis Chipmunk, Marvin Monkey, Beatrice Bovine and Larry Lynx decided to make a Personal call on Good Old *GREGORY GOOSE . Keep in mind Now, That Harold, Candy, Curtis, Marvin, Beatrice and Larry we're the *INSIDE, of the "INNER-CIRCLE". JUST ASK THEM !! They were on the INSIDE ! ! Well, when Gregory Goose heard the Knock at the door, He opened it with a Great Big Grin, That ONLY Gregory could Give! Before Him stood the "J U D G E S " of All Contests and Efforts. *Gregory was Beside Himself ! ! Instead of Seeing a group of Smiles and Handshakes, He saw Staring Eyes, Necks that had been stiffened AND *Gnashing of Teeth. Beatrice Bovine was the First to Speak, "Gregory, it has been brought to our attention that you had a conversation with Nelson the Ninja Snail,, and YOU didn't Rebuke his statement of being called "JUST-DUCKY". "As a result of this, *WE decided YOU "Cannot Be" CAPTAIN of the Hog Wallow and Mud in Your Eye Contest, PERIOD ! ! Gregory Simply smiled, Looked Straight into their Eyes, Quietly said "BYE", Softly Closed the door.... Turned Grinning, Knelt to his Knees, PRAYING, Thanking GOD, for the FACT,, That he, Gregory, He was Made just a *LITTLE BIT PECULIAR ! !
Jan 10, 2011
Jan 10, 2011 at 3:19 AM UTC
I'm extremely disorganized
I don't know what belongs where
Take my eyes for example
I can't find a place to rest them
I tried setting them on you
But everyone agreed that **** wasn't working
They explained that an organized man
Adheres to categories
And you and I
Are not of a kind
I attempted to argue that you organized me
My heart
My mind
You folded me neatly
When you beat me
You always made sure to set me aside when you were done with me
You'd place me in a bin
Or release me to the wind
Yet there was a burdensome fault in my littered logic
They explained that an organized man
Is clean
I must use eyes that are sanitized
To see how we're not categorized
And avoid your matador eyes
Because things will get messy
When the bull in your fists
Sees the roses in my heart
My humanity starts to part
And my wishes I begin to opine
For the nature of a bovine
So I wouldn't misplace my eyes
And be what I'm classified
But that nature eludes me
As do most things
On account of me being disorganized and all
But I'm a quick learner order burner page turner
I may not know what belongs where
But I know I belong neither here nor there
Making my eyes not belong anywhere
This is what develops my entropy stare
Jun 9, 2017
Jun 9, 2017 at 11:20 PM UTC
Rush around in circles like a headless chicken running
Diminishing to spirals in a blue encircled churn
Giddying to balance in unsteady equilibrium,
Whilst canting to the left on a gyroscopic turn.
Vaulting to the heavens in gymnastical maneuvering,
Launching into ether in fanatical escape,
****** features grimacing through muscular contortion
With abdominal contractions in a pantomime of ****
Yowling to the darkness in a feline form of vocalness
Hissing through the teeth in a serpentine display,
Bellowing the bellicose of bovine innuendo
And bleeding feet in gumboots on a ****** raining day.
Rush around in circles like a headless chicken running
With ****** features grimaced on a ****** raining day,
Yowling to the darkness with abdominal contraction
In a bovine innuendo of a serpentine display.
Bellowing the bellicose of bleeding feet in gumboots,
Vaulting to the heavens in fanatical escape,
Giddying to spirals in contracting equilibrium
Just a ****** innuendo of a gyroscopic shake.
Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
On a ****** raining day.
7 August 2010
Aug 6, 2010
Aug 6, 2010 at 6:17 PM UTC
Hello old friend,
With your tall sweeping evergreens
Towering almost endlessly
Into a blue clear sky
The endless swell of traffic
Cars peeling down the street
The smell of roasted coffee beans
From some hole-in-the-wall cafe
The obvious transplant donning an umbrella in the Autumnal warm rain
The light sprinkling of water enough
To nurture the verdant green
Hello old friend,
Mt. Rainier, she greets me,
Looming ever majestically
Over expanses of tree and road
Her white peaks cresting over
Fields of blossoming flowers
The tulip fields scattered across the sloping
Skagit Valley, her vineyards spanning for miles and miles
Hello old friend,
Seattle's grungy nature
Masked by her streets of trendy
Cafes and farm-to-table restaurants
Her mom and pop cafes
Her canvas gray dress marred by graffiti
And street tags
The busker on the street corner panhandling for change
The homeless sheltering under a cardboard blanket outside of a Starbuck's
The transplant with the umbrella stopping down to drop change in their jar
The crumpled dollar
The locals who pointedly ignore him on their way to work, to school, back home, to somewhere...anywhere...
The constant dazed bustle
The stench and pungent odor of ****
Curling around every seedy corner and
Affluent street crossing
Hello old friend,
It's been a while
Let me nestle into your newness
A new coast greets me across the horizon
Replaced by homespun everything
Pastoral fields where the bovine and equine reside
Hello old friend,
I suppose you're home now
I suppose you're home...
Oct 30, 2021
Oct 30, 2021 at 10:46 PM UTC
The cows graze in their pasture
Subservient to their master
Who doesn’t move faster
To help avoid disaster
So the cows are on their own
To deal with snow
Those all alone
Completely froze
Yet those who know
To use the warm glow
Of company that showed
Survive temperature lows
The cows used to solitary grazing
Now begin embracing
To fight cold air they’re facing
That is life erasing
While frost is lacing
The grass once worth tasting
The winter refuses to yield
As snow builds in the fields
The cows’ cohesion is revealed
As they protect their veal
And forget to steal
To connect and heal
During this ordeal
In times of inclement weather
The cows huddle together
Like someone pulled a lever
That won’t stay locked forever
So eventually ties are severed
As summer comes
The dumber numb
Thinking they won
Soaking up sun
Knowing winter is done
They divide into ones
A flow line
Of the bovine
Slow grind
Shows flies
Grow wise
With no size
They devise
To go for eyes
Cows go blind
In their mind
And cannot find
Their herd in time
Pretty soon the irritating fleas
Give them mad cow disease
As they don’t look to please
But put the good on their knees
While they’re hiding in trees
And biting with absolute ease
Seeing the absence of immunities
From their lack of community
The lost independent
Weather defendants
Become repentant
When they hear encroaching
Thunder clouds approaching
The cows become hectic
From a storm electric
Their formation eclectic
So they feel unprotected
But a fence was erected
So they can’t join the dejected
And this lonely life they elected
Is sadly reflected
The lasso angler
Hassling wranglers
Unmasked as stranglers
Bring the herd together
As they pull a lever
That’ll stay locked forever
As the cows’ heads are severed
And the horns in their head
Stick around once they’re dead
As we eat what they were fed
While they made their own bed
Nov 16, 2018
Nov 16, 2018 at 6:18 PM UTC
Mark this spot on the sun. Do it now.
You have your east minus west and the dead skin from mummified snow...
you must be one of those
Ancient stones, I skip across the altar.
Would you now be altered -
to call forth the fifth drum, the first fife and the long drone ?
If not, do this... shift your weight
to your better angels
and hum -
Some lung-free dirge
in the Demi-corona
of your obstinate
tongue ?
Your purple transcendental flying cow...bovine divine and howitzer quiet -
Shuns the fundamental hopscotch,
the thatch latch and the Kumquat
So surely
there is time enough to
thumb dots
Where your third eye
was last caught
seeming.
Mark my words, or become lost. Do it now.
Or Knot.
Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 4:15 PM UTC
You can tell people
Everything that is right
And still they look to you
Blank bovine stares.
I'm at a crossroad
A true love affair with humanity
A violent, dangerous hatred of human beings
We live in a country
Where the people who say the wrong things
Are either dead or silenced
Gone are the days of freedom of speech
Gone are the days of personality
Privacy stripped away
Every person clad with phones
A reason not to act
**** **** ***** ****** ****
These words weigh heavy
Regardless of context
Gone are the days of progression.
This is not a poem
This is a rant.
If you don't like these words
Then go **** yourself
You can choose what you read
People too concerned with people
While out government does it's best to eradicate
The brown skinned low lives of Gomorrah
As if we have any ******* right
To dictate the movements of humans,
Say no to orders,
You are not the car being driven
You are the driver
This poemish thing
Has gotten out of hand
Just don't let the worthless mother *******
Tell you you're wrong
Wrong doesn't exist
Speak freely
The rest is just noise
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 4:05 AM UTC
stone ground mustard Venus burns. She's not concerned that constant falling
and orbits, elliptical - are the same thing.
Her eyes are deaf. My eyes adapt to the pattern
that rattles the chain of events.
my Spartan theories dangle in dubiousness.
I find a trap, and call it Seattle... for i see cattle -
grazing a state of mind; north, north west of what God meant.
washing tons of pocket lint by hand.
chewing their cud
in the dark. meanwhile - outside the ranch...
My eyes refract. ***** and un-twink in the black lacquer that came -
with the oblique miracle. they sustain things that would sunder a doll-eyed bovine
to ever breach The Fence.
my hardened arteries jangle like numinous. I pine and snap ruinous barbs from Death's
prattle... for i see battle, razing the Grace of Time
more at war, than at our best. more -
bereft of what Reason defends.
tossing guns at bullets
by telekinesis.
[ undefined ]
i come from where i've never been. you were there. and ewe were there; fleeced and bleating
in the snow that fell as soon as shearing ceased. i recall, you were never there. but remember
passing you by... shilling an ocean roar you swore you'd plucked from a Seashell -
salvaged from the divine dry sockets of Poseidon's skull.
you were hawking your unawares. i played a flute made of question marks and glass drum skins.
i went where my stride was inclined, and never where i went to.
i never arrived by approaching the destination. only by always being somewhere else
till i got there. i came from where i'd never been and -
ain't been Nowhere since.
but i'm sure i pass
through There
ever since.
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 3:12 PM UTC
Who could be content
with this wretched world
religions bribe
death; bovine silence
tears at my beating red heart
without passions arc
there would only be rational thought
and grizzled earth
arctic cold
poetry beats the gravity
of this rock
deepens the mouth of inspiration
worming through
the machinery of desperation
like Jesus floats
eloquence it's revenge
a helpless idol
Dec 6, 2018
Dec 6, 2018 at 2:38 PM UTC
steamed broccoli calls me
its scent a melodious accompaniment
to the dance of
nitrogen and oxygen we call air
next I will torch
the dead silent flesh
of some sinless bovine beast
a sacramental conflagration
whose rich vapors will
add strings and woodwinds
to the wafting symphony
tickling my snout
my salivary will weep
in effortless anticipation
of jubilant mastication
of the flora and fauna
of my own culinary killing fields
that allow me
a few more waltzes
in this soundless song of air
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 7:31 PM UTC
the French palate doth enjoy a little horse
a batch of it hath been recognized
their meat products ill categorized
consuming countries seeking some recourse
a mix up at the meat supplier's end
hath drawn many persons to keenly question
the thoroughness of factory inspection
bovine and equine meats differ in blend
the affair hath been verily upsetting
those who didn't follow with consistency
now have a smattering of egg on face
the episode is most embarrassing
food items should guarantee authenticity
once they're on the market they cause disgrace
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 27, 2013 at 6:38 AM UTC
I
We sit on a tailgate pointed toward
the hills, where life ripples down the slopes
gathers in pools of the creek and begins again
to climb up the peaks and tree trunks on the
other side. It colors the breaths we take
green.
Children run here, learn their legs, as stalks
graze their shoulders and block their
view. They get dizzy as rows rush by.
We rein in our bovine friends here, watch
them jump and kick, see them call in
spring
II
We walk between rows of highly stacked cement and exhale smog that drifts
upwards to
join the cloud of soot.
We walk among so many abrasive shoulders. We get
hung up on abrasive personalities.
A gray wave in a black sea we’re vapidly
drifting. Legs move quickly to stay afloat.
swimming. Swimming always. Swimming further.
III
We sit for pictures with clogged eyes and stuffed chests
We coo at portraits of masks and dummies
We write books for laughs and money and friends
We read a little to find the romance and sorrow
and lay cold on the slab while our own pages turn.
IV
We pass out of porcelain faces with their tightly
drawn eyes that cast gazes over shoulders, homes
of last night’s kisses. We pass out of the electrical
current of youth
numbed and still alive
with eyes that look like stained glass windows of the
Church of Holy Suffering.
V
We wait for Sunday night to turn the dial to the Blues. We keep throwing something for an animal to pick up and return. We string beads and sell them for redemption.
VI
We think of our friends. They’re draped in a future,
warmed with hot blood rushing through their veins,
slamming fists to tables, pronouncing their minds.
ripping off dresses, sharing their madness.
tossing paint to canvas, showing their hearts.
asking questions to startle, proving their love.
VII
We think of our parents.
dead and gone, dead to us, dead by self-proclamation -
Is their blood cold and still in their withered veins?
Have they their fill of slamming fists and ripped dresses and tossed paint and startling questions?
VIII
We are sad.
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 1:32 AM UTC