Hollowed out heart

I unsheath the telescoping rod
from the vein in my left arm
connecting my ring finger
to the heart
and pierce the stale air
of dwelling in this too-small space
atop the low mountain ridge,
I scream, a hawk echoes me and
I determine to open it up,
as a surgeon might do,
and bleed out the rest of the
swollen lust built up
from impossible dreams
and so many bruised misentries
stain like scar tissue,
there is no feeling in this area
that the immune system
is ill-equipped to treat

As the resistance is overkill,
homeostasis is not a residential zone.
The needle-tip inserts alternate forms
of nourishment and necessity,
only meant to keep the heart
beating me up and down
like a closed fist
striking empty chambers.


Painting by Hans Dahl (1849-1937) 'On the mountaintop' date unknown, in Public Domain. 

ill at ease

Ill at ease
does not mean a discomfort
to the point of nausea
aroused in a state of self-satisfaction.

I suppose it is comforting to know
that this same word, Anxiety,
is on everyone's nerves
and coming out through the lips as
verbal indigestion, along with a liver and onion
aftertaste.

How many times have I needed to scream
a curse word
with the most volume possible to project outward,
to release some other demon
banging on the walls of my soul to escape,
as if my sound would shatter
gates

and makes me ill
swallowing this thought back like moonshine.

That was not a question.

Our survival depended upon this fine line between
cooperation and fugitive, patient and shaman,
poetry and prose
words and thier usage.

We made statues of security and braced ourselves
with agendas, acting in stone, we planned, we waited,
we toiled and cried over the temporal state of
poison, we consumed all we could with-
stand.

Resistance said not a word
about its origin.

What?

Hears drums and crosses lines.
Mumbles to self, too loud.
Listens for source, finds growling inside.
Forehead furrowed after thinking.
A grey hair, an old mole, an ache, a hunger,
a new sparkle, an old ennui, or lack of
commitment-
Where screaming will come in
side, when it is safe, and if the space
is able to absorb it All.

It All sounds tempting.
Obsessions are relentless.
Remember how images dissipate
when held under sound waves?



Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas via Wikimedia Commons.

Stages of Mutilation (ad nauseam)

Never been so sick with self I could taste it in the back of my throat

most like oysters growing algae, and this me, I scream 

and she freezes like a dumb deer on the winding dark highway.

Blindly bounding, bound and blind. Why I do mind the interruption!

My way, the high road, widening and re-routing due to corrosion.

Adult servitude has made me more wild than civilized and I despise 

the empty chit-chat, predictions, philosophy of catastrophe and empty

arguments that produce nothing I would swallow, hollow-remember?

I have not made myself clear in years, the only deep lines be

on my face. And my watch is dying, I hear it on my chest at night. Laugh lines. Elephantitis of my wet ware smearing ink and I still think it might work

with some flammable liquid. That is what we do to keep warm.

‡

Never be successful in a lifetime. Have you read any biographies lately? 

The good ones go

to better places, I think...and since I can no longer drink

myself there I swear I will 

I will

I will

I may....I mean to try to explain and this tiny truth laughs in my face,

which is why I should never stare deeply into any mirror

at those crows feet blue lies.

‡

Shut up! I have said, over and under, through and thru synapses

shot in my head. They said; put that voice in a jar, take a walk, 

don't talk to anyone about your crazy ideas, they will die-

Dead. You're crazy ideas, You Are

not the first nor the last to go unlisted, name twisted, dumbed down

held hostage, manipulated, occupied, and easily entertained 

by self-deprecation in all its bold colorless forms. Muted.

‡

You ugly. You can't. You ain't. Not gonna quit. Not worth

a spit, high and dry, my mouth tastes that salty green poison and 

I suck-

What would someone like me possibly do with dumb luck?

I already owe too much interest on borrowed intelligence, a smart curse,

and it hurts

but leaves no mark. SH. Self Harm and alarm bells, my squashed spirit yells, 

You win. I gag at my mocking grin, dripping bile down my chin

I can only hope to lose my inside voice. 

Painting by Yehuda Pen, Self Portrait Muse and with Death (1924) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.