The Days Will Surely Wind Down II

Find me
gilded in rust,
transience 
looked good 
you said.
shades of dark forest & rust & a muted orange that's only an idea of orange that's been buried in 
Crimson.
Crimson felt like everything else
I was asleep those years
viable to another's hand
this body was given 
its affections, angers, jealousies, prides, aches
not one of them
held to a flame
I was empty vessel
for any displacement 
I'd tell her
whatever she wanted to hear
& go back to sleep
who she was didn't matter
I wasn't paying attention anyways
body didn't suite me yet
the burden of conscience 
ran too fast
eager for a human life
find me in the company 
of young anarchists, 
the merchants of poison, 
the industrious few, 
the schizophrenic apparitions,
game-legged wizards,
delusional junkies,
loose women,
the self-reformed,
those who still think of words like valor,
those who spit the words of man out like bitter roots,
old men who wished only to save their memory,
the dejected, 
the forlorn, 
all the ways 
we appear before ourselves
veiled 
Something better

 

I made myself busy
with whatever I could
counted sand on the sidewalk tiles
counted beads 
counted hours 
so long as I didn't have to get out of bed

 

The period of adjustment can be a viscous thing
hollow people find many ghost
in concrete ecology 
they haven't elsewhere to go
(we have that in common
Step step down the road 
Best trick I found)
you can feel all of them writhing around at night 
in sudden inflammations of veins
seizing of tendon
the gut full of snakes
thrashing around on the floor 
pouring from throat onto sidewalks
waiting for you at bus stops 
walking down the railroad swinging chain in hand 
Oo you boys can be so tough
but I was never one
to fear
why bother
with nothing to lose

 

I wanted to work the work of the thankless 
I wanted to build the dharmic railroad for the traveling kids
to keep bellies full & hands warm & ground soft

​

They had other ideas
about work 
It seemed like you just wanted to float by 
who was I to judge;
a poor doctor
& a lazy poet
fell in love
sometimes 
but usually alone
too young
to know how to
that wouldn't stop me
from hanging on
& women 
with bells on their ankles
thin wrists 
haunted me
haunt me
& hold onto the past 
let them clink along in the background of sleepy thoughts

 

I tried to work
on timing
spent bullets
are scrap metal
you can't go back
& give them patience

 

one day 
I lost the trail
back wherever it was we would go
that must have been
why the stream left
we figured
it was us
after all
that the earth moved for

​

It was
artificial, 
but the illusion 
was nice
I thought of turning in 
long before
the rest