flower count

It’s right there in front of you, staring straight into your dead dumb eyes. The sharp pop between the teeth, the warm ubiquity of blood on the tongue, these words rooted in the sooth of your soil. All the true worlds lay hidden in the weave, so featured from foundation to firmament that they fill the fishbowl. We float surrounded by the spectrum that we sing, the long talk, the old story. A world of constant warning and meticulous wonder turning on the tip of the telling. The universe can’t get away from us fast enough.

An endless repast, a constant parting, the passage and the reel. We are among the recent verses, a few choice words spoken sharply and a little too loud for the room. Here it’s spring, now is then, the road can only open. The days barely graze, the words go on and on. Bleeding out with the world in bloom. Dissolving with the straying attention. It’s a tough life, deep into the epilogue. The going only ever gets gone.

The weather is turning by the bay. The ocean rocks away to the west, letting loose a lullaby, a sheen of rain set to the natal greens of the rolling hills along the coast. The voice of the forecast somehow calling down bridge and highway, through wood and weld some once dear ghost, a lost love or beat poet as memory gives way to myth. Blackout mornings fumbling with the keys, the stairs a hollow half step, voices down the hallway, TV through the door. All the ancient derelictions, skipping school and stealing books, the random cackling vandals and the line gone dead. The strange winds that left me bent and friendless now remind me of the flower count in itch and reddened eyes. It is what it is until it’s something else, and then it’s all that and the night before too.

unbidden

Looking back, it’s in fragments. Go nowhere stories, and tacked on motivations. It got me this far we all blurt and yap. It’s the way that made me, like that’s any excuse. For those left to the scrapyard of human existence, we tend to accumulate a lot of conditionals. All these if thens that broke bad. All those clauses that ended contradicted. The day to day fending off predators and petty criminals, getting taken down one heart break at a time.

It’s there by the hour, the push of light, the blot of wall. The pieced together play by play, poor rewards and meager features. This blur and beleaguer, trust paid in IOUs, the language torn limb from limb by reckless dissemblers and live by liars. Measured by the silence that attends each entrance, the stillness of every countenance as the say is had. All us outsiders bearing their unseen sigils. All us sacrifices waiting for the cull.

There is the room, the books and letters. There is the room, crowded with dogs and dust. Even the occupant knows this isn’t his story. All the keepsakes and tchotchkes, mementos and souvenirs, the photographs and memories with the Jim Croce cue— every treasure window dressing waiting for the curtain to fall. The terrible truth plods on while pictures are painted and alibis sold, words piled high as the empty takes each day. Words busy with their business as the graves go unmarked. The words keep on unbidden.