Evil sees right through me with a smile
How long can you pretend to play good?
Smile broadens as I keep feeding on guilt
The clock strikes one…no mouse runs down
I observe the cat purring by my empty feet
You know it will surely scratch you someday
My feet jerk nervously, deciding upon a kick
The cow jumps over the moon…now foggy
Flesh perched on a cool metal trigger, toying
You will resign as all the others have done
Fingers shivering with the cold metal touch
Bah-bah black sheep…that’s being racist
Evil sees right through me with a smile
How long can you pretend to play good?
Smile broadens as I keep feeding on guilt
Saturday, March 31, 2007
To The Shelter of Trees
Take me to the shelter of trees
Where I might taste an orange
Freshly fallen from the branch
Take me to the highest clouds
Up on which the orange grow
Setting to the dew all the nigh’
Take me to the farthest fire
That refuses no fuel we pour
Ne’er bowing to blowing wind
Where I might taste an orange
Freshly fallen from the branch
Take me to the highest clouds
Up on which the orange grow
Setting to the dew all the nigh’
Take me to the farthest fire
That refuses no fuel we pour
Ne’er bowing to blowing wind
Ink
How blue the ink stain
has deepened on still
paper lettered to anon
I mus’ to heavy spots
clear scratches aback
my body does hurt
not more than a thin
paper cut through me
where word lies lost
without its lost limb
once so blue withstaen’
Fade away, fade away
my faraway memory
for what use are you
as a memoir undone
whisper myself to wind
harsh beating my chest
plays the distant drum
and sings me his song
“how brave mans’ heart
faces howling canons
fearing his love gone”
paper lettered to anon
I mus’ to heavy spots
clear scratches aback
my body does hurt
not more than a thin
paper cut through me
where word lies lost
without its lost limb
once so blue withstaen’
Fade away, fade away
my faraway memory
for what use are you
as a memoir undone
whisper myself to wind
harsh beating my chest
plays the distant drum
and sings me his song
“how brave mans’ heart
faces howling canons
fearing his love gone”
Feet
TWENTY FEET
I am sitting on a ledge, about twenty feet from the ground. I have not measured the fall with a tape measure. And I do not intend to jump. Twenty feet will not work. Such less heights never work. At most they break bones. But I do not want a broken bone. I want myself broken, and that is not merely bones.
The wind is cool. The sun has set. The park is filled with people. I can see those people. Have they ever sat on ledges? Does sitting on a ledge and contemplating mix well. Can I think here? I guess I can. Therefore I am writing these on a ruled piece of paper in a spiral bound notebook. The binding is metal. It hurts the skin. Yes, it does hurt. The sharp end pierced into my skin once. That is why I choose to write in this book, not any book, but this one, which has tasted my blood. I am kin.
A bird sits on a higher ledge. The bird is a better thinker at its height. It does not fear a fall for it can pick up a flight midair. I cannot fly. I do not have wings. Yet, the ledge does not scare me. I might go higher up, to begin fearing.
FORTY FEET
The window ledge was stuck. I struggled with its rusty edges. But metal gave in. The iron bolts were red. They have colored the jeans I am wearing. My shirt is white. I have been careful not to mar it with odd stains. I am now sitting forty feet above the ground. The bird that was over me is now below. It did not choose to fly away when my ground touched the ledge beneath the window on which I sit staring at it staring at me. We have understood this height together, although the bird got here before I. Would I let it stay in my place of reign if I had come here first? Maybe the bird is a better creature. Maybe the bird is wiser as it has rested on higher rises.
The people that were in the park have left its lamps shining on empty space. There are still a few dogs running around. The dogs have soft tennis balls clutched in their mouths. I know they hold tennis balls as their fluorescent glaze is bright beneath the electric lamps. I can smell the oncoming rain. It is a peculiar scent when earth begs for water from the clouds above. They have a amicable relation. It is a relation of giving and taking that remains dynamic all year round. The relation is never unfair to either.
My ledge- mate has sought higher altitude. I see it fly away. Its black feathers blend into the black sky above me. There is always something higher than my height. I do not fear the forty feet drop beneath me. The ground does not invite me yet. I am different from rain. Rain is many. Rain is particulate. I am one. I am whole. But I need to be broken. I desire shattering and this height will not do.
EIGHTY FEET
The roof is home to pigeons. An old lady on the first floor who uses a cane to hobble about in the apartment leaves a dish of cooked rice on the roof. The cook white rice is left in an open plastic plate. The birds eat from it. They enjoy her rice. I have not known persons before who cook rice for birds. She is the first of this thoughtful lot. Maybe she learned her truthful method the hard way. Maybe she had given uncooked rice to the pigeons in her childhood and watched the pigeons pop as the grains bloated in their belly and eventually burst their digestion red on the ground. I watch the pigeons pecking away gaily at the rice behind me. That dish is not for me. I am nobody’s responsibility.
My legs dangle over the rooftop ledge. I can feel the low density of air here. I can feel the heat from rising smoke here. I can hear the television blaring a floor below. Someone’s watching a comedy. Or maybe the television has been turned on high to cover up whatever that someone is up to.
A jet plane flies over me. It has a tail. Monkeys have tails. But monkeys do not fly as cousins to clouds and children to stars. Monkeys fly tree to tree but their flight is short lived for they, like me, do not have wings as the birds behind me. A crow is eyeing the pigeons’ gathering from atop a water tank. The crow is alone. It is black. It is dark. My jeans are black. The white cement powder has stained them again. The red of the rust has been overcome by white.
Sitting eighty feet above ground is a giddy act. Remember Hitchcock’s Vertigo?
GROUND FEET
I have tasted the giddiness of heights. It feels safer on ground. The park is now exceptionally empty. The odd couples still linger. There are no dogs anymore catching fluorescent green tennis balls. Animals must eat. Animal food comes packed in all sizes of packets. I do not like dogs. For that matter I do not like pets.
A hoard of mosquitoes have gathered around a muddy puddle. I watch them. They watch me with their mosquito eyes. They do not come to me. I am bloodless. My blood belongs to my book that I have tucked beneath my arm pits.
Zero feet above ground. My feet touching the ground. This reality is most fearing. Higher heights did not scare me. This reality shivers. The cold wind blows. The distant scream. The television soap blaring in the background of a sobbing woman. The drunken walk of a penniless beggar. My walk. My thoughts. My height. My feet. My steps. I fear them all. This is the realm that I fear most…just as the birds who fear the skies most and therefore come to a ledge, twenty, forty, eighty feet from the ground to rest.
I am sitting on a ledge, about twenty feet from the ground. I have not measured the fall with a tape measure. And I do not intend to jump. Twenty feet will not work. Such less heights never work. At most they break bones. But I do not want a broken bone. I want myself broken, and that is not merely bones.
The wind is cool. The sun has set. The park is filled with people. I can see those people. Have they ever sat on ledges? Does sitting on a ledge and contemplating mix well. Can I think here? I guess I can. Therefore I am writing these on a ruled piece of paper in a spiral bound notebook. The binding is metal. It hurts the skin. Yes, it does hurt. The sharp end pierced into my skin once. That is why I choose to write in this book, not any book, but this one, which has tasted my blood. I am kin.
A bird sits on a higher ledge. The bird is a better thinker at its height. It does not fear a fall for it can pick up a flight midair. I cannot fly. I do not have wings. Yet, the ledge does not scare me. I might go higher up, to begin fearing.
FORTY FEET
The window ledge was stuck. I struggled with its rusty edges. But metal gave in. The iron bolts were red. They have colored the jeans I am wearing. My shirt is white. I have been careful not to mar it with odd stains. I am now sitting forty feet above the ground. The bird that was over me is now below. It did not choose to fly away when my ground touched the ledge beneath the window on which I sit staring at it staring at me. We have understood this height together, although the bird got here before I. Would I let it stay in my place of reign if I had come here first? Maybe the bird is a better creature. Maybe the bird is wiser as it has rested on higher rises.
The people that were in the park have left its lamps shining on empty space. There are still a few dogs running around. The dogs have soft tennis balls clutched in their mouths. I know they hold tennis balls as their fluorescent glaze is bright beneath the electric lamps. I can smell the oncoming rain. It is a peculiar scent when earth begs for water from the clouds above. They have a amicable relation. It is a relation of giving and taking that remains dynamic all year round. The relation is never unfair to either.
My ledge- mate has sought higher altitude. I see it fly away. Its black feathers blend into the black sky above me. There is always something higher than my height. I do not fear the forty feet drop beneath me. The ground does not invite me yet. I am different from rain. Rain is many. Rain is particulate. I am one. I am whole. But I need to be broken. I desire shattering and this height will not do.
EIGHTY FEET
The roof is home to pigeons. An old lady on the first floor who uses a cane to hobble about in the apartment leaves a dish of cooked rice on the roof. The cook white rice is left in an open plastic plate. The birds eat from it. They enjoy her rice. I have not known persons before who cook rice for birds. She is the first of this thoughtful lot. Maybe she learned her truthful method the hard way. Maybe she had given uncooked rice to the pigeons in her childhood and watched the pigeons pop as the grains bloated in their belly and eventually burst their digestion red on the ground. I watch the pigeons pecking away gaily at the rice behind me. That dish is not for me. I am nobody’s responsibility.
My legs dangle over the rooftop ledge. I can feel the low density of air here. I can feel the heat from rising smoke here. I can hear the television blaring a floor below. Someone’s watching a comedy. Or maybe the television has been turned on high to cover up whatever that someone is up to.
A jet plane flies over me. It has a tail. Monkeys have tails. But monkeys do not fly as cousins to clouds and children to stars. Monkeys fly tree to tree but their flight is short lived for they, like me, do not have wings as the birds behind me. A crow is eyeing the pigeons’ gathering from atop a water tank. The crow is alone. It is black. It is dark. My jeans are black. The white cement powder has stained them again. The red of the rust has been overcome by white.
Sitting eighty feet above ground is a giddy act. Remember Hitchcock’s Vertigo?
GROUND FEET
I have tasted the giddiness of heights. It feels safer on ground. The park is now exceptionally empty. The odd couples still linger. There are no dogs anymore catching fluorescent green tennis balls. Animals must eat. Animal food comes packed in all sizes of packets. I do not like dogs. For that matter I do not like pets.
A hoard of mosquitoes have gathered around a muddy puddle. I watch them. They watch me with their mosquito eyes. They do not come to me. I am bloodless. My blood belongs to my book that I have tucked beneath my arm pits.
Zero feet above ground. My feet touching the ground. This reality is most fearing. Higher heights did not scare me. This reality shivers. The cold wind blows. The distant scream. The television soap blaring in the background of a sobbing woman. The drunken walk of a penniless beggar. My walk. My thoughts. My height. My feet. My steps. I fear them all. This is the realm that I fear most…just as the birds who fear the skies most and therefore come to a ledge, twenty, forty, eighty feet from the ground to rest.
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