Static [Day 21]

Smudges and Smears

      The newspaper is illegible:
serif crop circle smudges from heaven;

                  'Good Morning:
            Nothing Has Changed'

A reassurance hangover sprawled at every threshold,
      - from stoop to stoop to stoop -
      loosely clutching an ink well
addiction leaking out a brown sleeve
that guards the contents like a whistle-blower
      from the eyes of the guilty,
            and of the innocent.

I trace my days away,
      fault lines in broken mirrors
            and fingerprint moths,
a desperate attempt to discover
                  the future...

      ...or maybe be present.

      where do my faults begin
            and my lifeline end?

                  Here, I know,
            is the musing of a fool;
            this, too, is meaningless.

 

                  Eyes Ouroborus

            Once, I was whole:
an entity distinct amongst fleeting faces,
degenerating, but contently so;

a serpent biting his own tail,
            so blissfully unaware
      that he is eating himself.

I would stare into the eye of
                  the machine
 - a vertical line separating left from right -
            on a knotted wood tabletop,
a screensaver picture of my last duchess
dressed in the seductive red longing
      she used to wear all the time,
      and my thoughts strayed to:
                  "this is my life."

            And this was my life:

I designed a carbon fiber poly-alloy
that could withstand the fires of Hell
            and, most importantly,
the permafrost of the firmament:
the vast and empty abyss, devoid.

This metal could withstand being dropped
by hands you were still reaching for,
both lighter than an Icarian feather and
            than having no heart at all.

      We would send ourselves hurtling
      towards the sphere first moved
      before climbing the mountains
      towering over the lakes of ice.
Without question of consequences,
we stir ourselves to passion and action.

Without question of consequences,
            we accept nothing,
not even the company of another
whose shoulder would rest beneath
                        our sorrows.

      

            The Language of Numbers

            Recently, I sit around musing:
while clothed in a shirt old and wrinkled with
yellow smoke stained cuffs and dark liver spots,
            - Self Rolled Marlboro Red -
wondering what would happen if I put my fist
through the screen of the computer on my desk,
      realizing that nine out of ten doctors agree:
      there are too many people in the world;
ten in ten agree the only universal language
is colored green and that you now owe them
a monetary favor for "changing their opinion."

                  I sat around clutching at my pants pocket
as it 'hummed' against the bottom of my mind
hoping it would be God calling on the other line,
            if only to inform me that he is still there,
      is still listening, that my signal hasn't been lost
      in the noise of seven billion other messages;

            that everything is going to be ok

and that my credit card rating has qualified me
      for a special one-time only investment
I could start putting down-payments on today.

            And this was my life:

I grasped at my pocket with three fingernails
      left longer than they should have been,
with a mind momentarily surprised that fabric
was still separating a message from my hands:
                        forgotten.

When I finally brought them to my face, I noticed that
my hands were bright red and tectonically textured
            from being sat on for too long.

      

            Marathons and Aftermaths

      Fridays are supposed to be finish lines
so, naturally, I leapt, stretched out my hands -
I was fixated, determined to reach the end first -

            but I was running a marathon,
      spiked shoes on packed pavement,
                  no water and no direction
      no pack, no legs and no mind for it;

I came up with a mouthful of asphalt,
            eyes overflowing with tears,
                  with a race unfinished,
            and a handful of divorce papers.

            I was left alone on a Friday.

     

                  Outcast of Malpais

            Recently, I slouch around musing:
      posing Socratic brilliance to the heavens,
clothed in a royal purple bathrobe with pasta sauce
clinging to the bottom of the hems of the sleeves, golden
                        - three types of cheeses -
            a shadow beard masking my true identity;

A dead phone of the future is in my pocket forgetting time,
                        an app for forgetting.
            I don't own a watch anymore, so I'm
grasped at by my wrist line, by my mind hallucinating vibrations
                        in loving memory of
      neglected muscles and neglected love that
            I'd then claw at my mind to be rid of;
      that I'd then claw at my wallet to be rid of;
      that I'd then stare at the ashes of long overdue
            bills and job release forms to be rid of.

                  The television tells me about news:

                  about how we the people
            don't get news from televisions anymore;

about how politicians can't talk to their bipartisan counterparts
            because 'they don't understand what's important';
about how government is all a party and they're partying
with their money - with my money - while I'm in debt,
            but also they're in debt, so count my debt tenfold,
even though I met all my payments for last week, this week;
                        I'm fooling no one, I am American;
                              I am debt.

      About how China owns me; owns the world, maybe?
but that's just one big misunderstanding because, actually,
the U.S. still owns everything - except maybe the park
            outside of Wall Street, which recently seceded.

About how the world's going crazy and knows nothing but also
            about how we have everything - more or less - figured out.

                        About how

people live longer, love longer, starve longer,
            hurt longer, die longer, and be dead longer.

But that's not important because we can see space,
            and there is something else out there.
Can't you see God's eye in the nebula of star dust;
      can't you see that God has dust in his eye?

We built a rocket – I built a rocket – that would allow
      us to go to heaven and remove that speck from
      God's eye, but the rocket exploded and killed
      everyone onboard except for a monkey
            who survived through a miracle
                        or evolution.

      

                  Words of Judgement

It was standing before a woman clothed in black
                              - in mourning -
with a gavel in hand and a set of scales in mind -
            my picture sketched to permanence
black with white for an illegible newspaper,
      with a sharp serifed smudge of grey
            for type casting: 'villian';

      it was standing before a woman clothed in black,
            that I saw him for the first and last time:

He wore a charcoal pinstriped suit with spit-polished shoes
that some spit-polish kid had shined for a dollar during the man's
                                    airport bar hop.

His hair was slicked back with black gold like the fur
            of every animal from the Gulf coast,
      and he held their attention by the throat.

                  And, throat in hand, we were captives -
            even I, an audience onlooker envying the fly
                  nestled on the wall, rubbing his legs
                              together, laughing.

                        We were captives, entertained,
                  premise promised, but the ending
                              - they all agreed -
                                    needed work.

                              "We are a hive mind,"
                  I always said, "our best work comes
                        when we share our stories."

                              and so it was:
            there is no understanding here, but
            every person wanted - no, needed -
                  to hear the ending, needed to know
                        the conclusion to every single
                              fucking beginning
            because we find the end to be so beautiful,
                  so completely fascinating and
                              utterly captivating
                  just so long as we are spectators
                  watching others stumble to the finish.

So they left the room and spoke in hushed whispers
about nothing, until they realized that they all had
high school friends who had attended each other's
colleges, respectively; so they talked about wasted
      days and decision made to further a career in
            bouncing coins into cups and forgetting.

                        So it was a natural jump then
            when they decided to flip a coin for fate.
                                                or luck.

We don't like to finish things ourselves anymore:
            whether sentences, thoughts, or relationships.
            because the end is always inconceivable,
                              or incoherent,
            or not exactly what we wanted it to be.

      

                        Control

                  Recently, I laid in a bed
as far away from 'home' as I could find,
the basement of some long abandoned
                  coal heated hell hole,
      with a belt around my neck
            and a gag in my mouth;

      the television is still on as a
candlestick woman – warped from
use, with wax runnels down her
cheeks – whispers into my ear
words I don't care to understand,
                        that is,
      until she asks if I understand.

The scattered embers bleed crimson,
leave bright visions of the fantastic fires
                  they could have been
stained across the dark expanse of the room,
                              tucked into
                  the insides of my eyelids:
a curse given for wanting to stare;
for wishing more from a fading glow.

And, though I never listen anymore,
      I answer her with a nod of my head;
I open my mouth to speak around this
                        suffocation.

I said:

                                    _{you can depend on me
          until the bitter, bitter end of the world
          when god sleeps in bliss.}

      _{I hope you inspire yourself everyday because
             you are true, refined inspiration;}

             _{one day you will recognize it.
      
      
      
      
                                    or you won't.}

_{Written for free-verse poetry maven @d-pend's revolutionary poetry initiative The 100 Day Poetry Challenge [Advanced Group] undertaken for Steemit School where @d-pend will be hosting a daily poetry show at 6 PM GMT.}

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