Knead & Other Selections

Knead…

the earth with rain,

and let it fain

the glaring lips 

of the sun.

Knead the earth.

Pour your mortar

among molded bricks

and molten sand.

Knead the earth,

and erect your dwellings high.

For like the shrub pierces

the womb and sprouts

from the face of Mother,

you, too, shall wreak ruin.

Reign eternal, 

and remain.

Hazy Gaze

The great brown mountaintops

were melting into meadows

and ridged plains overflowing

with their own substance

in a thick stream growing

thicker under the heat.

A great scythe in the sky

unraveled more of the earth

and dug deeper into its roots, 

reducing their very soul

to the heap of lumpy mud

whence they came. 

The sky was lit

by luminous eyes

projecting light rays

as plenty as days, 

and thereupon each

perched a songless deformity

meddling with what it lit. 

Now, 

what if the scythe were

my tablespoon,

the mountaintops were on my plate

and it were a plastic plateau?

Were these eyes mine,

they would not shine—

only see and suspect

a gateway to introspect.

What if the earth were

my foregone lover,

or my mother? 

What if…

what if it were chocolate,

this liquid subject

and hazy object

I nigh perceive?

Apathy

I stare into high noon.

I see the fight in the wide white disk

of the sun, diffusing ray upon ray

of its cosmic fission.

It gives me vision, 

and takes it away.

From mountains

to flatlands fled

I, foreign, and ferried

for an unfair fare

across woods

and seas.

The black cloud

right beneath my skin

does not let me breathe.

Though content

with godsent joys,

I cannot smile.

All the while,

I turn my graceless,

charred face

from love and from

all the warmth

at finger’s reach.

Each day,

this brain frays;

this mesh of flesh

does more decay.


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