mardy

At times I overlook myself, and when it all catches up,

it crisps up in the back of my eyes, it clicks into view,

the misdirection of so many encounters, the built up frustrations,

of so many misunderstood conversations, so many misheard mumblings,

as though i’ve been tumbling, and it catches up to me,

and I catch my self, I overhear grumblings, to some unknowing stranger,

some unguarded transparency, waves that crest, threaten to break,

peaks that amount to nothing, and I catch myself blushing.

ceremony

backing down from some memory of children crowned,

the grinning carnival of Christ the king.

piercing orange flesh, making excuses,

running in circles maniacally,

crisp drum beats, lunch time bells,

clapping joylessly, singing melody,

nostrils flared to breath in synonyms for God.

fossil fuels

you cannot just skim the cream,

off into some separate dream,

collect the run off of my outbursts,

in tea cups, catching the drops.

there is nothing to reanimate,

recycle, reassign. there is ruin,

there is rot, and i'd thought I'd better tell you,

as it seemed like you'd forgot.

long

so damn long since I swirled in the palm,

with complements that pirouette and trip over each other,

cut the lights in my head like a trip switch,

so i'm left in the dark, downstairs, none the wiser.

lost

There is something sapping at the seems,
blinking blindly behind the scenes, groping for the greens,
fistfuls of dollars and lint, all smoked up after unknowable dreams,
platitudinous looks of longing, out into confused futures,
out over acres and acres and acres of nothingy farm land,
where they see themselves wrongly standing
and wringing the necks of chickens for hope, and for dignity,
with ironically soft hands,
 from no work,
and some of them with hard hands
 from work sites
and meeting over the table of hopelessness,
stabbing the gaps between their fingers,
 dignity smoking itself under the table,
trying to forget something,
forgetting it,
wracking brains to remember.

caught up in forgetting

There will come a time when we are relieved of duty,

allowed to see that we have been caught up blind in a rainbow,

we will collect all of these moments, fill our basements with ghosts,

we are gorged on them, they will clog our sinks with thick chunks,

the colours have blended to the point that we can't remember,

if green came before red or whatever, where did all this light come from,

where am I, and why? we forget that we're forgetting, our vision tightened to a spot.