These little suckers
I rhyme too much. Despite my best
efforts, words bend over. Touch each
other. Hold hands. One syllable
slyly slides into another.
Bumpy bits sticking. Fricking.
Hell. I start out all aim-ful, side
glances. Soft almosts. Whispery
drones of meaningful bees. On their
knees vomiting up. Abomin-
ations. Transmogrification.
Too much and too loud. No one
wants this. By all means, open
a vein. But don't be naïve. I started
this year saying, I'd be more chill.
I lasted all of ten minutes.
I thought I might die.
The second language washing over me is sunset
The second language washing over me is sunset. I am
out of sight of land. Undertowed and rip-tided. Amused
by diving schools of conjugations. Drift net thready.
Talk to me in shallow dolphin-tries. Slick eels and lion manes
gleaming. Rough-hewn boats. Push off from port. Tickles now
for passage. Everyone's frothing. Dropping sea glass
offerings. Mouths beyond imagining. Oh my, my—o'er head
eyes. Billionaire wide. Once more the revolution scuppered.
Le Moustier's successors
construction is done
for today, hoarding
fence precarious
gravel tarps rustle
under stoic boulders
from the last ice age
worker bees hulk
buzz-less, barbs-up
snow settling in
every vinyl crevasse,
dropped tool stillness
awaits excavation
urgent orange
stalagmites take the hits
a solitary garbage bag
half-filled with shite
opens and closes
its cavernous mouth
every gust a lonesome
cry—au secours!
il va faire bientôt nuit!
pas prêt! pas prêt!
Welcome to the half life
Welcome to the half life. This point
of inflection and subtraction.
My instability is common
knowledge. Now that you all know
here are the questions. Discuss.
This feels increasingly un-like my garden.
Regardless, tomorrow I will pick up
the hoe of displeasure, and till the soil
of insubstantial posturings. I may still
look the same on the outside. Even maintain
the identical weight. But inside, my nuclei are
shedding. I am a fragment of what I was.
At 50%. That's not dust in the air. Soon.
And sooner. I will be something else again.