And now for something a little bit the same...

They dragged themselves across the broad fern plains with slow, shuffling steps; each one spilling over into the next without thought, without grace, without hope. Their backs slumped in exhaustion, bent under the oppressive width of the never-ending sky that shimmered with heat. Even the swarms of pinch flies lacked their usual energy.


The memory of cool mountain air disappeared under the stench of brackish water and rotting earth that clung to their noses, making it hard to remember the little things that filled their days when they were alive.

They carried nothing with them, save the things given to them at their funerals. The food and water lasted only a few days before it, too was gone. Even if they had food, it would not have mattered; the traveling baskets had long ago rotted away and crumbled into the black loam.

Some men still clutched at small the small necklace hung around his neck chest with ochre stained fingers. Made of wood or ceramic, the tiny, carved figures represented the All-Mother with her bear’s head and full hips that pooled together beneath her rounded belly seemed strange compared to the ragged skin stretched too tightly over bones.

For some, these items were all they had left of the lives that belonged to them before. Most had already cast them away in anger. Every man dealt with the reality of the curse in a different way. Some screamed and cried, trying to return to their villages only to cause horror and disgust among his old people. Others simply accepted their deaths, moving silently away into the trees.

Each man, marked with glyphs and the trappings of death, carried only the burden of longing for what was and what could never be again. They muttered to the little statues as they moved. Mother, Mother! They cried. Mother save us! Mother heal us!, but Mother had never listened in the long, long time of their deaths. So they clutched and muttered with half closed eyes in the manner of a man who was no longer knew what it was it is he was asking for, but could not stop asking anyway.

They clutched at them, muttering prayers as they stumbled westward over rock and frond, following the Speaker across the flat fern plains. They carried no other possessions; the Apartheid denied them this. Not food or water; not even the implements for fire. What water they were able to find was brackish and stale from laying in the long, thin washes that riddled the plains. They ate new the tender shoots of the ferns, when they found them growing close to the surface of the dark earth. Frogs were plenty, but even those who had the stomach to eat raw flesh could not bring themselves to take a life, knowing that they no longer possessed life of their own.

It crippled them.

Every step brought more pain. For them, every movement exacerbated their pain. Their thighs stung from the ferns slapping them as they slowly moved across the gentle roll of the plains. Even the slightest touch, no matter how soft and sweet, became burning fire that spread and multiplied. It became their existence, the sum total of themselves and their humanity. It erased the faces of their children and the smell of their wives’ hair. It ran through their minds, erasing the men that they were before and leaving nothing but the strange, sad litany behind.

Mother, heal us! Mother, save us!

*second draft, first page

Untitled

My insomnia showed up tonight and
Parked itself on the front lawn with a cooler and a radio
I thought maybe it would get bored and go away,
But then it invited all the its anxious little friends over
To loudly celebrate who-the-fuck-all-knows
On a Monday night

Soon they will be hanging out on my couch
For days and days and days
In the same sweat creased pajama bottoms
Gobbling up infomercials and ice cream
Until I could just scream
GET THE FUCK OUT ALREADY

I really hate these bastards.

Sparrow

Wordlessly, I envy his lack of sorrow,
As I sit, watching his lies fall,
Onto my heart, into my stomach,
I devour them.
They taste like plastic-soft and full of lead
They coat my pity, turning it into a perfect, precious pill,
Easy to swallow.

My words; they flutter away, empty
While his words assault my ears
His back, strong and graceful
Turns to me
I raise my hand to caress it
But the distance is already too great

The stained and weary door
Yields to him without a sigh of regret,
And my hand falls into my lap once more.
I stare at it, seeing something strange,
And terrible there
Like a dead sparrow on a snowy sidewalk.

Morning in Morocco

This morning,
I woke up rather late
And stepped in a big pile of Monday
Before I even rolled out of bed.

You made me almost -waffles
In the form of frosted flakes.
And a thick, black coffee that
Smelled like Morocco and
Tasted like my life in Sicily.

I love how,
Even when I am trapped
In the tangled box
Of my own anxieties,
You still manage
To move my world along.

Evening Snowstorm

The snow was uncomfortably
beautiful this evening.

I imagined the snowflakes
as hundreds and hundreds and thousands
of little albino bees
that swirled around in a mist
over the empty streets.

Smashing against my windshield,
they left nothing but blanched
bug guts in their wake.




I am glad I have new wipers.

Homage to Burgess

Hello, new droogs, old droogs and chellovecks I never saw with me own glazzies. Welcome the world of me and mine. If you don’t know me, you should. And, if you should know me and don’t the Bog sod ya!

Me eemya is Ana. At least, that is what me droogs horn at me. My em, she don’t call me nothing like that, but I ain’t a lomtick worried about what me em calls to me, you know?

Anyways, I know who me droogs are. And me droogs know who I am. And if you count yourself on that list, then I can guess you is lucky enough to know the odin and only choodessny me.

Secret of Me

I am:
A bookshelf on a latch,
A concealed stairway to hide secrets and homemade preserves
A lopsided yellow flower thriving
Between the cracks of ill used sidewalks,
nowhere to go but up

Vita Detestable

Elliptical promises
Stretched thin and full of holes
Form a chain that shackles me
To this version of you that
I despise more with
Every uncovered lie

I keep waiting, staring at the clock
With my bags packed in the closet
Shoes on without socks
For the exact right time to leave
But, the clock ticks too slow
It ticks and ticks and ticks
And ticks and ticks and ticks and un-ticks and then…

It is time for dinner
And the kids are hungry
And the dishes need washing
And cat needs fed
And I find myself standing in a long line made of one
That twists and turns before me
With innumerable lists and checks and maybe if’s
And all I can seem to do is barely hold on

I await rebirth;
Dreading it
Needing it
Hoping that somehow this
Awakening of sweaty sawed off madness
Will steel my nerves and
Harden my resolve
And escort me to the places deep inside myself
That I cannot go alone

The Third Option

A woman, strange in her bones,
Dirty knees, clean dishes, broken Amarillo
snow globe in rum, run, row
Snow, snow, snow, whoa, wrist, twist
-Red hat, red heart, red heat, red glee

Three-Five-Seven equals strawed berries
Berries carry on a tree,
Three, Three, Three, Three, Three, Tree
Tree, Tree, Tree,
Liar, liar, fence on fire!
Pop rocks- rock talks, talking hands, talking heads, head phones,
Phone home-
Unplugged phones won’t sing…
(But you never call.)
Three is prime. Prime time-
My time! Prime time in the sunshine, baby!
BBQ and family makes us happy, but
It also gives me indigestion.
– Indigestion and indignation.
Indigenous nation of three, minus me.
Naturally, we dance on the grass,
In the morning, early warning,
(Before the yard gets sleepy, see?)
Praise Jesus and pass the ketchup!
-Whateverittakestomakeyoufeelbetteraboutshuttingthehellup!
Oh, Jesus pleasus, ain’t got no time. No prime,
No time, salt and lime,
-thain’t one o’ mine.
Robot garbage, mechanic change, candy canes
Canes are knickers, knickers are optional
Optional is rational but not logical and reasonable
And reasonable is no good.
No good at all.
Two packs, Jack and three of those
-Whose picture put this here?
Dad, mad, glad, sad, had, BAM!
I had a dad.
Dad’s had.
He’s papering the wall.
wall, fall, tall, small, gall, gall, gas, glass,
Glasses in the rosebush,
But there were no fish,
-no rain, no fish, no gain, no dish
(rabbit, bear, hare and fish,
give the bastard my fondest wish)

Three, three, tree, tree, five and dime
Dime’s also prime. But not ten.
And not one.

No…

Anything at all is better than one.

Subzero

Words twist like vines
Twist like wind
Twist like steel
Binding me to a life
Impotent and breathless



I die by degrees
in the subzero waters
of my marriage
What I would give
For heat
For warmth
For the cold ashes in my core
To erupt in a triumphant display
Of primal nature
Burning and blazing and bursting…



Instead, I quietly submit to
The ridiculous sit-com plots
Of our lives…



If I could but allow the possibility
Of a dream
This dusty old android
Would rip the plugs out of the wall
and be human again