poem

After the Exodus

Posted on by SM

Silence has fallen across my lips.
The throat chakra is clogged with bloody membranes,
unheard sobs, meticulous giggles, and years of truth.
It hurts to not know what to say.
I am unable to metabolize,
deer-eyed and frozen;
I am in constant need of shock therapy.

There’s a heaviness weighing down my eye sockets.
A mini flood swells and subsides:
the concurrent ocean of mystery.
I can’t pinpoint the crux,
I forgot how to navigate West,
so I am adrift,
sober and awake,
feared and bemused,
knowing too much,
remembering too little.

I guess there was no use running away.
The swirl of dust devils haunts your dreams,
piling on top of one another,
until you are suddenly pressured to be
someone completely different.

I pray for my voice to return.
For the sweet ego to give logic
to the madness,
for the jargon to envelope me
like a blanket of nirvana,
for the ridiculousness of analytical
understanding of something
that so clearly cannot be understood.

For then, only then,
can I finally forgive us all.

No Light – Default World Collection

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There’s a sink whole
in my chest.
I smell pool water.
A colorful snake creeps up–
its teeth deep
in my brain stem.

I lose you every day.
Your face
molds my vision.
What you left,
coins of the material world,
haunt me,
just like you.

Which step am I on?
Backwards,
the unproductive nature
of my grief
stumbling around,
feeling for life,
finding
the quietest
space in the world,
a hollowness,
a vacancy-

No light,
no light at all.

The space sucks it up,
the sound of blood
drowns out the birds,

and the gray
has become
my ancestor.

The Temple’s Promise

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I can’t make anything
hurt less.
I can’t make your tear-stained
cheeks unwrinkle.
I can’t make you forget.

There is so much
you need to burn,
there is so much
you can let go,
there is so much you will give to me.

We’ll let
the fire take it,
we’ll laugh
with the whips of air,
we’ll gleefully ride the eco-sphere.

I can warm
your fingertips,
I can breathe
in your ears,
I can help you see.

And then I won’t be there tomorrow.

A Dance

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The cajoling is divine.
And I walk on hands and knees:
eating grass,
sighing deeply,
back exposed.

Waiting for a weight,
a boulder of granite,
an anvil of muscle,
a mass of heavy moss
musky with Earthly roots.

The soul,
the flash of the nonhuman,
slinks into a revelry,
basking,
geisha-like,
in the sun that glints
off your teeth.

A cavernous aroma
sweeping silently
across my stuttered sleep.

When dirt and grime is all you know–
you burn it down,
and play in the ashes.

The transfer of heat and power:

a dance,
a shared drowning,
a memory.

Default Dreaming II

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The story of the mad woman,
a classic,
flickers like a film reel
in my head.
Concocted personalities,
hallucinations,
voices,
they all seem
to be happening
to someone else.

I leave rooms,
ghosted by the air,
and find myself on roofs,
under cars,
and half-naked
in the middle
of parks.
A presence, with its hand
on my shoulder,
gestures like a parent.
I’ve been bad…

But the character is simply
from a book,
fiction and made
out of ink
and bound paper.
She’s written.
And having been written means:
no formal goodbyes.

Default Dreaming

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I have begun to worship
empty notebooks,
but have cursed the pens.
I can’t stand all their bleeding.
They are always
and endlessly–
and if it weren’t
for their nature,
their inherent Shakespearean role
they play,
I’d throw them out
altogether.
But, no.
Instead, they have been burnt with herbs,
buried in the snow,
and locked away
like a long-haired princess.
Her inky locks
folding,
layering
over her shoulders:
untouched.
Lackluster, her pupils deaden
over time.
Her bones worry.

The key is somewhere, I know.

Otherwise,
are we but to wait, patiently,
on the galloping muse
and his white horse,

like a small victim?

The Kiss

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Being dual-natured
and unkempt,
I felt the magnets
of space
and the gravity
of your face
coupled with high-school snickers
and LSD.

Being as much man
as I am woman,
I gnashed your letters
with buckled teeth
and carved your name
in the temporary trees
brimming in white light
and debauchery.

Being trampled
and defeated,
I opted to follow
instead of lead
and my river of truth
spilled into your sea,
where you gulped me down
and left me.

So, I strangled the moment.

Ripping the breath from her mouth,
we stood there in the dark,
with bicycles and souls,
salty-wet and desert-sanded:
one formless form
of a resounding glow,

an echo
of skin
over skin.

To my playa self

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Good night
sweet thing,
another year
always brings:

a light
a song
a dance
a scream–

A giant hug
a warm kiss.

A sweat
a mirror
a fever
of bliss–

A thrust
a shiver
a demand
for promises.

A shaking, a spreading,
an emblem of survival,
a quaking
a scraping
a tremor of denial.

And when you rest,
sweet thing,
when the cape is hung,
the whips are folded,
the dust masks
are debris-free:

dream I’m on fire.

Not a Lie

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To say I stumbled across your picture would be a lie.
To say that I saw 2 pairs of eyes looking at me,
1 familiar, 1 unknown,
and I was not at all surprised
to find that once again
you were not alone
would be a lie.

To say that I was relieved by the debut
and that the joy in your smile
buried all doubts
that I was ever over you
would be a lie.

No.
To say I never searched my mind
for those few good moments we had
and wrapped myself in every micro-second
of your flesh and breath
and grip and grin
and laugh and wrath
and every molecule
of space that you
took up within me

would be
a lie.