Respiration; Exhale

Late afternoon, predusk
Crystal beads balance in between blades 
And I wonder how the dew does
Survive the day, 
Like me.

All the change and energy
exhausted.

Exhaled more than I took in.
Eyelids spread wide
I steal the last flakes of golden sun
And hold my breath
Because it's all I know I can do
and besides 
(myself)
my heart is simply too heavy
To lift this evening.

Painting by Henri-Edmond Cross, 'The farm, evening' c. 1893 [Public domain].

Buried alive

My heart thumps
apeish pounding
and I try to keep my fangs
tucked in.
Wired and winded
together, denial was the
black matter
we refused to identify.
Barbaric as it Be,
pacing ourselves
in our cages, deepening the ruts,
muddy we get
stuck
unable to climb out
of our graves.


Painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 'Mountain Forest Path' c. 1919 [Public domain].

Best wishes

Awoke enraged, not so abnormally early, 

as of lately, over the years.

It was

when the pieces of to-day come 

to-gether, jagged edges

fit like drifting continents

Mean-while 

I feel the Red Sea churning in me,

a chemical nadir or lake-effect

chill, the miasma of yester-day

post-comatose and 

it all seems circumstantial.

To each their own:

Reaction, dreams-re-action, re-sponse

in a more vulnerable way,

most appreciated

On Sundays

with all the

preaching, humility,

and alms, atonements that sound

off, and on

faint echoes-chants of fury flare up

As I smolder

screens and screams of forgiveness

do not alleviate the weight,

some may say, silently changing forms

from matter to steam

was all one should wish for

one another.




Painting by Frank Buchser, 'Portrait of a young woman' 1868 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The disaster in me

Gasp

gusty winds aloft

Tremble

strings of faulty nerves

Flooded

emotional levee buckles

damned

storm

surges

Quaking knees

collapse

Heat waves

carried by ripping currents

that pull me deeper

nearer

the purple flame

Fire

accelerated

I am a natural disaster.

Image by Leonardo da Vinci, 1517-1518, Natural Disaster [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.