This was a really weird prompt, but I followed it as closely as I could and ended up with a stream of conscious hodge podge. But I feel like there are gems in here that I could use somewhere else...
Descent
I hold a
drink in my hand while I listen to you,
The cup the
color of clear ochre and inside,
Amaro and pistachio
liqueur pools and swirls
With the ice
cubes and the small segments
Of lime pulp
and slivers of zest like bits of
Green potato
peel. Your voice resounds
With a lisp,
spittle and saliva gesticulating
Into a
poetry about life and all the details
Of the day
and you always bring it back
To the years
and the months and the days.
We span time
without a timeline, nothing
Is linear. It
feels like a road map that we
Follow, but time
it is more like shining
A light through
a prism, where the beams
Spread out
like our fingers, all the colors.
We bike into
the present as we race down
The hills we
climb, up and down, up and down,
Down, Down, Down,
Down, Down, Down.
And after
all the grit from the road,
The taste of
cedar and asphalt,
Particulates
of tires and our cars
Pounding the
roads into sand, we wonder
If the river
could take us into the sky,
We wonder if
we keep pedaling off the
Face of this
earth. We will only end up
Falling off
the dock into a lake, or bay,
Or into the
surf.
And that is the surf
Our bodies
made of beach, the thick
Grains of sand
made of granite,
Each one
holding the colors of rose
And Brute
Champagne. All of the molecules
Like bubbles
that we could drink, salt
And sweet. When
I surf, I can feel the rise
Of the water
taking me up like an airplane,
The sound of
the earth’s engine rushing
Me up and
into me as if I too were a tidal
Being, that
I could grow fins and gills
And churn
the ocean enough to make waves.
This body
disappoints me, this pale meat
Insists, determines,
thinks, is. Demands
The sustenance
of breath and food and sleep.
I am tired
of the daily bread of my body,
The ache of bone
and joint, the insecure
Pain of
opening the window blinds
To bring in
the world, to bring in the morning.
“Did they
teach you the intrinsic value of stocks,”
The bullion,
the golden finch, the wool winnowed
Into golden
thread. In a world where everyone wants
Gold and
money; I want adventure. I want the value
Of experience,
the tip of the toe desperation, knife
In hand
survival instinct. I want the bear in the woods
To greet me
at my door and welcome herself in.
I want to
find myself in the silence of the grass,
The hush of tree
bark. I want to find my copper
And brass to
weigh more than mansions and cars.
I want a lot
of things, but there is nothing more
But to release
this hollow want from my throat,
As if it to has
a body of its own, hands, fingers,
Throat, a
throat within a throat, I have so much
To speak
that these hands are a second throat
That I can
speak and write, write and speak
And empty
this fullness growing inside of me.
That is not
even enough, but it quiets when I
See the
earth light into fire, the sky illuminating
Into the
blood red of sunset.
I grow silent too
When I ride
my bike down a slope, the anticipation
Of falling
of being suspended into the air, the risk.
I grow
frequent and plentiful into this life
As if it could
hold me like a cup filled with
Lime juice. I
pucker my lips, the sour
A reminder
that a body feels; I am lived.
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