"floodlights" poems
Maybe,
It’s not about finding
The light at the end of the tunnel,
Maybe,
The tunnel doesn’t even
End, and the light isn’t
The warm glow of a
Sun so high above,
But the dim illumination
From a floodlight, dusty,
And draped with cobwebs,
And maybe,
The floodlight isn’t there,
It’s shattered and its pieces
Bury into the skin of your
Bare feet as you step on them,
And continue to trek forward in
Darkness, towards the next light.
Maybe,
That’s a good thing.
You’re in a tunnel after all,
You can’t drown in blackness as
Easily as you can the sea.
Maybe,
The extra darkness
Makes the next floodlight
Brighter, and you’ll
Stop, and bathe in it a
While as your aching lings
Finally rest.
Maybe,
If you’re brave,
You’ll think you can
Live under the light,
Unaware that you’ll
Lose your knowledge
Of the darkness,
And when your light
Finally coughs,
And shudders
And dies,
You’ll get lost in the dark again,
Turned around,
Heading away from the new lights ahead.
Or maybe,
You prefer the shadows,
Carry a bat,
Or a golf club,
Or whatever blunt weapon
Catches your fancy,
And you smash each light
You pass,
Cutting the feet of all those
Behind.
Maybe,
There isn't a light at the end of the tunnel,
Just an endless string of floodlights,
Bright,
Shattered,
And lost.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 7:12 PM UTC
and today
on this day of
your birth
I am ******
down into
the rhythms
of all that
we have been
until this moment
the biting rawness
of new ebbs
the saddened veins
that vibrate
like used, worn
guitar strings
the curve of
your fingers
that once played
upon my skin
your weighted down aura
that I can no longer penetrate
and buoy up
and here I stand
all glowing light spirals
my head whirring
in mystic opulence
my gaze pulled to
the reverence of stars
my purity of river
in a swoosh
around my waist
that gurgling clarity
of liquid
pooling me in sacred
cleansing
that I must now take into
another rush
of estuary
and as I raise my arms
to the heavens
I almost fade
into the floodlights
of time
and my tears
push through
my skin
like the clear
jewels
of
salvation
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 2:54 AM UTC
For forty days and forty nights
We had no reasons to fight
So the planet was flooded
By the warm blooded
******* soaked
Visible ******
No more cloaks
No more loners
For everyone there was a match
But here's the insidious catch
It didn't take long for people to get bored
And start cutting and crossing cords
Until we resembled a chaotic horde
For forty days and forty nights
The Earth was flooding
Until things got muddy
And clouded transcendence
In the form of independence
Our lives keep knotting together
Our lives are rotting endeavors
We were completely happy
But felt that was too sappy
We sought edgy darkness
In a world that was shark-less
We made the world we live in
By putting on shark fins
And eating those that fall overboard
Out of their relationship
We try to be their overlord
Or add them to our list
Love grants a clenched fist
When there is value to a kiss
For forty days and forty nights
We turned on Earth's floodlights
And the world was flooded by love
Until we decided to try to look above
To see nothing there
Just the empty air
There was a time when there was love
Now there is none
Only a gun
And the number one
Jan 13, 2018
Jan 13, 2018 at 2:12 PM UTC
blood
blood patter and splash
leads us concrete toward
tracing back til the scene
i’ve flashing thoughts of the brutality
the violence that must of cussed
between persons
in fear fray and inebriation
down the steps
my four year old child and I go
the greasing bleed in bronze putters
growing and leadening
on stone labours
glowing citrus the refrigeration
of the underpass
‘flips the bird' at the summer blaze
grey dead coral bricks of urination
seasoned in deep beading now cold
the broke up weapon
candy slates of brittle teeth
glass / bottle / beer /brown
the neck its' hilt
and the main mud of the bleeding
the flies are the thing
that bothers my ‘little nipper’
usually a flapper of queries on repetition
no other queries are raised
just eager for the vibration
of train carriages gatling over our heads
i stopper any words i may have on the matter
he holds my hand with his hot hand
we progress under a port arms
procession of caged floodlights
and walled in by fresh graffiti
fingers dripping retching for the guttering
Dec 22, 2023
Dec 22, 2023 at 3:05 PM UTC
Floodlights.
They’re ghosts right?
From our memories,
Have been seized, we
From the perfect dream?
Drip drop drip drop
Turning tricks, dropped the jack
***** when you coming back?
It’s off it’s off
Seldom silence serves as sight’s severance.
**** chop **** chop OW!
******* pistol clock
Whip glock whipping ****
How many names can you think of for a knockoff
Of soda pop?
I’m sorry sir you’ve got the wrong Ryan,
I haven’t starred in any movies that cryin’
Old seniles, and sensitive females, so honestly claim
Was the way life should have been for them.
Oh in that case I’ll show you the brain,
Then kick you in the *** for being so gay.
Hold on there, wrong Ryan.
I ain’t waiting tables, or banefully fryin’
Up **** that I spit in for women with tips worth less
Than my two cents.
Oh I apologize, celebrity lookalike.
Must be the weather or the windshield is cracked
Or the antennae are bent or the cables are jacked
But I can’t seem to figure out just who you are
When I’m watching the TV pimped into my car,
Let’s try a few shall we
Not a cook…Not a lover boi…Silence of the…Birds, if you’re a bird I’m a…Bat…Batman! Batman and Robin! Red Robin! No not a waiter…
Red hearse, Fred Durst, Paris Hilton, Ryan Milton
Wrong Ryan, Wrong Ryan!
Oh my god, silly me
I seem to have gone on a tangent you see.
Tandem bicycles, all of them for free.
If you would only come visit. Agreed?
Of course I know that you’re THE Ryan B.
Jan 23, 2012
Jan 23, 2012 at 9:04 PM UTC
A *** girl is completely beautiful, she is endowed with the full-fledged beauty of mind and body, her forms are full of beauty and a tidbit, in my eyes you will always be perfect. So hot and sweet, well, just tin, I have a severe burn from excitement of ***** and love. You are attractive from any side in any form. Your body seems to order me to love you again and again. Your yummy appearance to enter deep *** hypnosis of love is so beautiful well just to the loss of pulse, delicate as pink rose skin, pink tint on your skin like delicate pink opal, you are the personification of the true form of femininity, in my mind I see only you since I'm in love with your soul and body, my soul, heart and mind are saturated with the powerful force of love for you, true love for you and excitement boils in me and boils, you stand out with its outstanding beauty from the crowd of girls and women, as if several thousand illuminate you ajor floodlights accompanied with your favorite music. I gently kiss your skin and it’s just the divine taste of love and passion, I look at you and don’t notice how long I look at you, your great beauty is always fashionable in my heart, for me you are the highest top model of true beauty, I comprehend your bowels of amazing beauty, you expose your soul during unforgettable *** so it is your image is like unforgettable *** you expose your sensual tender soul filled with burning passion like a fashionable jacket, you ****** me with its beauty with style and special chic. My whole mind is filled with you, every neuron is filled with you, now my brain is so arranged, when you undress with deep delight it becomes difficult to breathe right up to the shock of admiration, to what extent it is a wonderful sight that I just sweat and stutter with excitement. Than more often I see you, the happier I become like a child, as if every time I fall in love, looking at you for the first time every day, I see that you are the highest happiness and love in the universe. I am in love with your ideal divine forms of the body, they are just perfect and perfect. I feel you and love and excitement by the whole nervous system I feel only you alone and it goes into the soul into the subconscious, into dreams, and the whole nervous system receives a powerful ****** of romance from love for you, like a great volcano or a great tsunami, it carries me into the world dreams where everywhere you are just like a storm and swirling like a huge tornado, the element of my love is able to crush this world. You are my most cherished desire that I made every day. When you look at me, the violin symphony gently sounds, when you peer at me the piano keys, from deep sensual eye contact, in your eyes I see infinite beauty.
Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich
Aug 2, 2019
Aug 2, 2019 at 5:23 AM UTC
midnight, floodlights
purse seiners packed in tight
anchored on the fragile shoal
shadows play on the white wall
dune grass, needle, leaf of tree
gallows rising from the sea
back and forth the tenders run
salmon gathered one by one
the struggle and the toil
the silver flashing fins
leaping from the net
slipping back within
Nov 18, 2016
Nov 18, 2016 at 10:14 AM UTC
*Walter, I just want to sit on my *** and **** and think about Dante.*
—Samuel Beckett
All this fractures the Wolf. The ancient leaves
amid the ancient woods, wind riffling wind
in eddies she can see but she can’t hear,
the braying of a fatted calf which she
could eat, if she could hear thy call, O Wolf.
The tympani pretend to be a thunder roll,
the crashing cymbals mean to simulate
the distant lightning, all the strings—cello,
base, violin and viola—play the
pizzicato of rain commencing…
The Wolf sits to watch—what?—the floodlights fill
the stadium? the baton poised? the crowd
about to have their daily dose of not
quite silence served up yet again? She hates
that they have come to watch a prophecy.
It’s raining full blast now, the Wolf’s exchange
for music, how things balance out, how rain
fornicates in the forest, with its pools
and puddles, how it tenders lakes and rivers
and shadows… It can’t be! Ahead she sees him.
She sees Dante, the poet of the prophecy,
the one she has to drown. It’s why she’s deaf.
She will not hear him wail. **** him so he will rot
in hell before the other poet comes. **** him
and spare the world another poem about
another world. The rain and music grow
so dense around her soul. She is so quick,
too quick for him to flee. She drags him still
alive, drags him to the lake of his heart.
Sink and die. In Paradise only bubbles rise.
The tympani pretend to be a thunder roll,
the crashing cymbals mean to simulate
the distant lightning, all the strings—cello,
base, violin, viola—play it soft,
so soft, as if the rain is about to start…
The Wolf and I walk the slopes of hell.
When Farinata and Cavalcante
rise up to ask her, ‘Who were thy ancestors?’
and ‘Where Is ***** she howls. O Wolf.
O Tuscan. She howls.
Aug 25, 2010
Aug 25, 2010 at 5:51 PM UTC
I don't want to sound pretentious,
I don't want to be a bore.
But my car is a Lamborghini
And yours is just a Ford
My home is my castle,
Seven bedrooms to explore.
I have a maid in the scullery,
And marble on the floor.
I dress in top designer chic,
My jewellery's in the vault,
I have a gun beneath my pillow,
It's really not my fault.
There's floodlights in the garden
And security alarm fired up,
I see a psychologist weekly
To ensure my brains not stuck
I want to build a pyramid,
So when my time has come,
I can take the whole lot with me
So I won't be worrisome!
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 3:24 PM UTC
I was born in terrorism.
I grew up in earthquakes, tsunamis and rebels:
in shouting blond girls with red eyes and pixel
smiles.
I was born in blurred faces and mute
voices pulling at my
eyes until I dripped the clotted
tears of a thousand soldiers, or refugees,
or children.
I was atomized, crunched
into small seeds and scattered
across a desert field.
Someday a flower would grow there,
budded from the bones
of my being and
flowered into a fiery,
empty marigold-- dripping
gold and embers across a thirsty desert,
where the shout
of the civilians was distant
enough to ignore.
I was sodomized,
conceived in the roar--
of the rumbling wave- crashing over-
pulsing through her thrashing cave.
I watched my flower whither
and blister with the deliberate count
down and the glare of the
floodlights-- dowsed in water and soil--
or some semblance of the two.
I was born in the blood
of my mother and died in the
womb of the world.
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 7:50 AM UTC
Flies swarm when the floodlights come on.
They **** and they fight, live and die.
In the space of an hour
turf becomes a bed of glass wings-
none are left
straining for the light.
It looks like a mass suicide.
Eggs hatch in the sweat of night.
Tachycardic at birth,
one brief exultation
enough to still the lung,
nullify the heart.
Yawn out of existence,
bullfrogs croak miserably
as bodies fall from the sky.
You ask me why I cannot sleep-
I saw a thousand deaths tonight.
May 19, 2017
May 19, 2017 at 5:30 PM UTC
Undisguised not camouflaged
Standing out, A bright sun
in the blue sky stars hidden
within go unnoticed by the
Indifferent world Trapped
in their own cocoon of delusions
Unable Unwilling to metamorphose
to the beauty of kindred nature
into a free fall spiraling down
into the mundane
Illusion of Solid crust
beneath which the turbulent
molten lava flows
sometimes bursting out
yet another times causing
Tsunami and tremor
And yet the indifferent world
lays blinded by floodlights of duty
warming blanket of empathy
shredded by scissors of hate
buried within the grave yard
under the tombstone of misery
The different who rise up
from time to time are consumed
by the indifferent
like a flash of lighting absorbed
by the indifferent earth as storms
of war thunder around in dusky
skies and innocent plants take refuge
in purging rains only to be flooded
out into the indifferent sea of documentaries
only to make a trickle of frozen blood flow through
the chambers of tranquil heart
and indifferent yet try to contribute
subduing the thorny vines of growing guilt
by a click of like or share or Tweet
Sometimes the silent song
is heard through the sonorous
souls within mind and winds
of change blow nucleating through
an idea propagating through words
symbols of art hitting the conscience
and arise the single conscious crowd
not the raging temporary mob
new sprouts of generation rise up
through the barren land
and art forms inherently provide
what people need dragging from
the oblivion of what people want?
as bright illusion of illumination
is smoldered through enlightening
darkness as indifference transforms
into glowing luminous flowers of empathy
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 1:50 PM UTC
The three of us sat on the disused, plastic patio chairs. Their white facade had faded into a malformed sort of grey, with grazes of mud and collected rainwater erosion further condemning them. We were blind drunk after three-and-a-half beers that were tempered with lemonade. The dreary five a.m. dawn threatens daylight, bringing an end to the party. In a few years’ time we’d be here again; coming down off drugs and talking about missed chances.
Tom and Amy are in my parent’s room, as we whisper conspiracy theories about his impotence, in the light of our lonely morning vigil. I barely remember what else was said, after we spoke of *** and love, and of our life beyond home. “There has to be something more, somewhere…” we would all insist. Yet, one by one, we have turned to shrugs, and those left to insist, do not.
What I do recall is the coffee (I never drank the stuff then) and dry crackers. As the sun came to rise and patterned the skies, we had seen one day slide into the next; we aged brilliantly in a moment. I stared out at the Rugby field just beyond the overgrown allotments; you could only make it out by the floodlights that towered over the trees. I knew then, of where I had always been, yet knew not where I needed to go.
I still don’t.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 11:18 AM UTC
I’m the space between light and shadow
The dimness just beyond the headlights
I’m the silver lining of a storm cloud
The pause after crescendo
The top of the rollercoaster, just before the drop
I’m the hum between beat and rhythm
The echo in the valley
And the wake of the ship
The air that moves between hummingbirds’ wings
The scent of gardenias on the night air
The wet sand that makes castles but clings to your feet and never leaves the lining of your swimsuit so you never forget that day at the beach.
Someday you may spot me in the background
Shield your eyes against the floodlights and peer into the urgent quiet at stage left
You’ll hear the scribbling of last minute changes;
And know that:
I’m that improvised line
on everyone’s mind
at the end of the night.
The essence of a memory
You can’t quite place
Christmas mornings
Summer jobs
The undertones of that familiar perfume
The elusive je ne sais quoi
That sends you back to the food stall
With no name
On the corner of that park
We used to love
to cut through
On the way back from grandma’s.
You’ll recognize me
In the dying applause
Bonfire smoke on the morning air
The late afternoon breeze that reminds you to pick your kid up from school
The coolness of a glass of water after the first rain of the season
The third chew of an intensely flavourful bite of food
Music at a wake
Bourbon at a graduation
Coffee in a hospital waiting room
I am the crease of your forehead between tears and laughter
The glowing ember of a discarded matchstick
I am the space
Between footsteps
And words
And silent chants
Between your hands
When you fold them
And hold them
And raise them up
To touch the sky
And lower them down
To return to earth
I am the space between Light and Shadow
Between earth and sky
When you need me, I’ll be there.
Even if you don’t know it.
Oct 13, 2022
Oct 13, 2022 at 9:18 PM UTC
in the fifth grade
we whispered oaths with wide-open eyes
the decaying gums of a chronic smoker
and the **** addict's exposed ribs and bleeding scabs
burned into our retinas
but they never thought to warn us
of the dangers of warm brown eyes
and a smile like floodlights
of ragged breaths in a window seat
and the drug that his hands can be
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 7:41 PM UTC
and today i invented the sport of dribbling,
got tired of walking and philosophical thought,
an abandoned football on the street,
took it,
starting dribbling the **** out of it (approx. 2 miles),
drinking beer and smoking -
i was waiting for the heart-attack,
although teaching people to walk down
a high street and cross a country road
without bumping into bad manners and death:
walk... look at the ball... look... dribble the ball...
**** traffic... pause from dribbling...
then dribble on... i swear i sweated out half a can of beer
with that idea... oh wait, i did, here's the ball,
and i have a number of eye-witnesses...
dribbling is like jogging for those who can't give up
drinking and smoking - i know i'm not a ronaldo,
but this is a tight pavement, and not a green pitch
illuminated by floodlights and t.v. cameras,
i'm simply exercising... n'ah, this will never catch on,
it's too english, not enough american spandex in it
or kite surfing or VEGANS FOR
SAVING THE POTATO PLANET -
ah, oh well: at least i have my dog my leash on it and chores;
well no, i don't, i have two lazy pets and my lazy me.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 6:13 PM UTC
The aerodynamic
spiraling of
cappuccino colors
and butterfly words,
churches divide
and coffee-shops
offer something
that equally
scolds impatient tongues.
Floodlights
liquidize in
the charcoal fog
and the girl in
the leather jacket
comes to life
beside the freeway.
Her shoes
are the ships
and her eyes
are the telescope,
but the streets become
the cement river
where the gasoline
creatures never stop.
This is where
they left her
to die,
this is where
they took
everything away.
She is nothing,
a mistake along
this highway,
but she was lucky
to be given
a name
that sounds good
on a tombstone.
Knowing this,
her pepper eyes
water and her body
collapses upon
brittle grass,
the Earth welcomes
her return.
Mar 28, 2012
Mar 28, 2012 at 12:47 AM UTC
There's an atm in my neighborhood
That gives out singles,
Or three of them,
Or seven,
And so on.
It sits next to the drywall box
Filled with EBT dinners,
Next to the numbered gas pumps.
It glows in the predawn air,
While I sit on a cement wall
Across the street.
That hunk of junk charged me $3.75 to take out $7.
Next to me a man tells his inquisitive boy
Why the police act as they do.
"They the cops, man.
Not you."
I'm watching with rapt fascination
The ten inch screen
Of some wheelchair-bound woman's
Educational tablet,
While her hand, twisted by palsy,
Taps at a magnified qwerty pad.
She's playing hangman,
And I silently,
Secretly,
Guess along with her for almost fifteen minutes.
The bus arrives, and I'm grateful
It's the doubled kind with the hinge in the middle,
Cuz maybe I won't have to stand.
I take the empty seat next to
A Salvadoreña co-worker
I sometimes ride in to work with.
Our conversations are limited,
As are her English and my Español.
We laugh at the Georgetown gringitas
lining up with their morning runners' clubs,
And lament over the cabrones pobres
Peddling to strangers for jobs
Outside the big box hardware store
That won't hire them.
The sun rises as we cross the Key bridge,
And the wounded Washington Monument,
With its scaffolding and the floodlights leaking through,
Is a diamond-studded phallace
Shining over a town draped in a shroud of humidity.
I close my eyes and try to rest
For the eleven minutes between
Me and my desk.
Aug 4, 2013
Aug 4, 2013 at 5:52 PM UTC
Old emotions in new words ran down the depth of the 12 foot end…
Swimming in the rain filled me with a strange nostalgia a happy knowing of happier truth,
I begin to swim faster and faster still till I reach the other end and when I surface I can smell the fresh earth in the first rain.....
It feels like swimming in the boundless ocean of the world through currents warm and cold as the rain falls in neat sheets tempering the warmth of the water……
Standing in the pool I get the feeling of being at two places at once , my legs at the cold surface and my arms scaling the warm bottom of the shallow end....
When the torrential dance of the clouds slows down to a gentle shimmy
I looked up from the blue tiled depth and there are stars on the surface of the water where rain meets the pool, where movement meets stagnation, where the rapid meets the still and it is a calm with a strange eerieness ..
This is what happiness means to me, the gurgle of excitement that leaves my lips bursts as a bubble of laughter at the surface of the pool……..
My tears inconspicuous in the chlorine drift into the murky reflection of the floodlights,
The rain falls soundlessly loud and old emotions in new words run down the depth of the 12 foot end…….
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 4:32 PM UTC
labyrinth lit by
floodlights straining
the vibrations
emanating from the
ground crusted with
glue pine sap and
citric acid a
flashlight in hand
to shine shadows
on awareness to
cast the eyes shut
and unflinching
not a twitch of
sight feeling the
coarse pig hair of
the walls shutting
out the light with
clenched lids open
palms with fiberglass
gashes staining a
path not to follow
but to inhale the
pathogenic patterns
ghosts showing us
the way towards
translucent permanence
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 1:21 PM UTC
Press it to your lips, breathe in deep,
let the smoke fill the car with guitar riffs
while you tear down the street.
‘This stuff will give you a lift,’
says John from the driver’s seat.
I pass him the joint and turn the volume up.
Good hard rock pumps our blood with a wild beat
and the heat of summer night keeps us on top
of the world, the six of us, crowded
in a rusted, five-seat pickup,
pushing eighty, with the music loud, and
the backseat flirting getting rough.
We’ll pinch and tease the girls ‘til they
sink, slyly, into our arms
and enrage us with eyes begging for mischief.
So we give them mischief, and pull the car
up to a gas station. John turns to me to ask if
I’m up to try this place.
‘It’s just right.’
We step to the asphalt in pace
with the radio’s thump, the white
glare of the floodlights hard
against the damp black night
and the shadows of trees. I start
to review the plan, but I know it alright;
the door jingles lightly as we step inside
to rows of multicolored bags of chips.
Inside it’s cold and quiet. John coolly strides
to the back for the drinks, and I pick
out a pack of cigs from in front of the counter.
The man is reaching, John is ready, then lightning quick,
we bolt from the store; round the
corner, find the truck; ‘Hey you ********
But he’s too late, we’re racing away
and flipping him off. Our laughter
is loud, the girls are blinking in the spray
of beer popped open. That’s just after
coming back all smiles, the victors;
flying into the truck, I sat
a girl, Joanne, next to me. We soaked her,
freed her, ourselves, with foamy suds,
the alcohol, and young nights on the road.
There, signs and shadows rushing past,
we sing to the radio: “I hope I die before I get old!”
and drum on the dash.
Throw the bottles out the window,
who cares what happens!
Spread the glass shards, let the whole world know!
Press it to your lips, drink to the intoxicating purr of the engine.
You laugh, listening to the tinkling
as bottles shatter, one by one, on the pavement.
Feb 2, 2010
Feb 2, 2010 at 7:45 PM UTC
Midnight thrall:
middle of the road, fingers
tucked in long full-sleeves
but for floodlights
emerging off mists:
An event. A memory. A bell.
No end in sight.
Silent night. Mad owls prowl.
Confused crows some still awake.
Milk clogs the kitchen drain.
Hour of the shadows.
Nothing ever lasts,
nothing ever lasts.
Distant clock. Pitter-patter tap.
Stupid evolution.
The gene pool flows on
to utter unknown ends.
Meanwhile we dream up
heaven-like unions and revolutions
and coronations.
Stupid night. Confused crickets.
Spider and insects. Enter
the lizard. Half a telephone ringing.
Man at the summit.
See-saw, swing. Dying distance.
Jan 25, 2013
Jan 25, 2013 at 12:36 PM UTC
I am just
Massive corroded batteries
Inside an electric fence
Turned on
Overused fluids and
Exposed wires
Rolling blackouts
Security breach
Franklin and Tesla and Edison
A backbreaking craft
Destroyed without protection or
High voltage
Floodlights on, flickering
Always blinding, green.
Plugged into
An oil slick
Atomic energy
To power the borders
But throw one switch
A primitive word
The prison is powerless
The wires short circuit
The guards
are all
Electrocuted.
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 10:44 AM UTC
Sun rays roll down the green grass & ochre weeds
Yellow, bitter, flowers, litter the hillside
Long red rays turning pink as split figs
Orange as hot coals, blue as the ocean
Then the bustle of twilight, such noise
Streaking headlights fade into receding redness
Carrying their sound with them, down the road
Figures, sillouhetes, wander by me, quiet conversations
Wind stirs their outlines, rustles their clothing, their hair
Bringing me the scent of dust, of split juniper
Darkness descends, but it cannot ***** out street lights
Or the flourescent floodlights, glaring artifical brightness
Or the blinking red eyes of radio masts
I'll peddle back now, chased by headlights
Down black asphalt roads, black as the night
Radiated heat, gathered from this boiling day
Sweat pouring down my face, into my eyes
Breath tearing at my chest, blood racing through veins
I have to outrun the night, to make it on time
To that quiet destination, a little room on the second story
With a chair, a desk, a shelf full of unread books
A yellow notepad, a pen that doesn't work so well
Arrowheads and unshaped stones, a bullet on the dresser
My grandpas old knife, a symbol of the ****** Mary
Your charms that you carelessly left behind
A small tiled room with a shower to stand under
Watch it drain away, dirt & soap, all of it
A face stares back at me, changed, distorted
A reflection in the mirror, a reflection that was me
Oct 4, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 at 5:09 AM UTC
The most sinister sounds exist in your head
or they are in the walls too, scratching and
clawing and gnashing gnarled teeth to
intimidate, initiate conversation. I, like the
elephant man, can't get people to look at me.
Crawling in the walls, crawling in the walls.
Body noises, bodies making noise all on their
own, no contact necessary, no touches, none
small swift sweet brush of fingertips on freshly
shaved legs, these noises follow marbles down
tubes of recent cell growth and death and the
burnt cilia from one or two nights up too late.
Who wouldn't want the danger? Who wouldn't
be seduced by the threat of extinction, the on
and on challenges of basic survival? I don't know
that I want to know the people who would lie
down during the apocalypse to be taken up to
heaven or who hang on to thoughts of angels
in clouds out of fear. Stop apologizing. Just stop.
Move slow through tall grass on hands and knees.
With one light slow breath I can pass pathogens
to unsuspecting commuters on the 7:05 train
who will pass by hundreds of people in their day,
breathing heavy from flights of stairs and some
pollution in the air and some emotional turmoil
that will likely resolve itself right before collapse.
Understanding imminent destruction has a
strange power reminiscent of floodlights
coating a thousand heavy construction sites
covered in some damp **** ***** snow.
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 4:15 PM UTC