These small things
Do not dissolve
In Your Great Hands.
I’m commissioned to sing
All I’ve seen,
All I can understand
An open witness- this I am.
Sharing where I’ve been:
My mistakes, my sins,
My redemption
My emotion-
And there are a million facets to what I feel,
Every surface is real
And solid.
Because we’re giants, we see
Only two sides to the coin,
But the smaller we can be
How much more
Spreads like a galaxy
In every direction.
How long I’ve desired
Something timeless
Love watching me sleep,
Something to keep
When the mundane crimes
Accuse me.
Hard breaths, and long,
I’ve sent out my sonar
My words echo so far
Reflecting off future stars
Coming back home
Alone.
And I know hope, the answer
She’s a veiled street-dancer
And peddles for free
Wares redemptive to me,
But the music runs long,
A song I can’t remember
How to sing.
Blind I wait against my will
For the fury to build
Unleashing silent impenitence and
Over-compensatory sycophancy
Waiting for the blood to thin,
The vessels to expand, or perhaps
Contract to emend
This current course-
Pain coursing as vascular regret or disillusionment.
Oh, the worlds which in
I’ve dwelled, passing again
Through mist by mist
Faces erupting, faces dim
I must, I muster, I am
Fumbling graceless
On some twist of sin
And tasteless chaos
Where I’ve been reduced
Now incoherent echoes
Of meaningless words
Lost consonants
And low vows.
I wait for the rain
Which falls in me
To soak the solid
Am I insane?
Is insanity
The absence of hollow
Or the ability to see?
Can life possess
Or in truth be
An isolation tank?
I sank into sensory deprivation-
It sank back into me,
And still I’m tumbling
In the great descent.
It’s only alchemy
These combinations firing
Inside of me
This volatile language
My body reads
And obeys.
Data swimming
In a chemical stream
Informing every iota,
Every atom in me,
What I am to feel;
Who I am to be-
But I resist, I persevere:
I will not fear my basic chemistry.
Arrested in step
At the sudden lightness
Of curtains caressed
By an unexpected breeze
In the midst of an otherwise stifling heat-
Dancing in waves,
Touching my face,
Friction giving way
To cool… to calm…
To quiet relief as comfort.
Beauty hiding in the whispers
Wrinkling the curtains.
An unexcavated strength,
Veins extracting their toll,
Forms in the deepest, darkest holes,
The abandoned mines of broken-down souls
Possessed by the weakest parts of the whole-
Strength that screams
With foamy lips never dry
At unseen ghosts in black skies,
Weeping for the strangers hobbling by,
Dreaming of consciousness as a closing eye-
Strength still, that looks,
And in looking, sees
All that is and should not be,
The kind of madness compelling, “Flee!”
And all perceived chants agreement-
And in the sweat, the sorrow, and the mud,
The hunger, the loss, the burn of chains,
In thirst, in isolation, in condemnation
The strength tarries-
The soul remains.
I remember you
Walking in slowly like fingertips
Transversing a weeping piano
Notes as quiet drops slowing,
Collecting on the pane
That holds us at bay.
I heard you
Humming a doleful dirge
Between the bars
That stir our hearts
To refrain, to merriment, to holiday-
Your solemnity undergirding
The beauty of your sway.
These grinding bones
Have ground me down
Weighted still,
Full and round,
With future endeavors.
Please forgive
These heavy days,
Moping, groping,
To find my way
Back to passionate.
It doesn’t matter-
My changing positions
Because You are the God
Of every transition,
And even in this twisted state,
I am still Yours.
I don’t ask for help
because there’s nothing wrong;
It’s these damned unavoidable days-
Broken in the most alienating ways
And how I crave sunlight,
cash in hand, and the
sounds of streetcars and city cabanas
advertising syrupy cocktails-
Concoctions to dull our time
and senses.
I don’t mention it,
because it can’t be helped,
and it doesn’t help to mention.
My intentions are to return,
to work, to folks, to the higher call,
but these stalled days
feel like fingertips slipping
off the edge of the precipice,
And the silent falling
through some fathomless abyss
Because every surface is deep.
Plumbing the depths,
my casual breaststroke,
dredges infinite silt to pan,
to rub between hands
unconsciously familiar with the task.
Each granule forks in
endless serpentine directions-
These introspections are too numerous,
so I ask for leave-
Sunlight, and
some cash in hand,
For temporary, shallow relief.
viewingcamelot 