Mammalian

Gasping,
the weight of all worldy air
light enough to float
gathered together atop my chest,
paralyzing me in between states of consciousness.

Now,
I am not worried about dying. I am not suffocating
from this.
I can feel the sun sucking out all the moisture
I have accumulated solar radiation,
the evaporation sometimes itches,
crackling my skin.

I can hear the white waves crashing below me,
at my feet,
the atmosphere levitates between solid and vapor.

I can feel the displacement of the ground under my body
wedged between a million grains and cannot move
under this compression.

This thick skin has held too much inside.
Over time,
the walls between this and that breakdown-
ocean, air, lung and rib, my marrow margins.
Any body,
I dare
touch me, a moment before the explosion
feel how forms are all temporary.

*
It was just this thought
of a suicidal great whale. My morning, anxiousness.
Beached him or herself.
What is left of this shell?
The gastric juices digesting itself,
as if there was one final thing to
finish
breaking down.

Gravity does not let us change our mind
either,
I was about to explode
myself.

Image By Avenue (Own work), stranded Grey's beaked whale in New Zealand [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

The weight of the world

My pockets are empty, no rocks for my swim today
I am armed still with each of these quartered limbs

The rope swing resembles a gnoose, or a snake
the mongoose was always me, miss identified

Eucalyptus tendrils squeeze out mentholated breezes
calling the monarchs, two come to court, tagging up in streamers

Perched in the sappy pines a murderous row becomes a mob,
volume and black plagues grow from the chain mail gang

Humming while hovering over a well, the nectar inebriates
bird and bee still in recovery, stalling in their stupor mid-air

The drum roll of wind, corralling the dead, noting the tenor of leaves
swirling in symphonic disharmony, sloughing and buffing scales

Laser beams between tall pillars scorching the dirt, releasing the
essence, crushing the spice revives, in particulates burnt alive

The serenity of the lakeside: The tranquility of Tantalus
eternally reaching, mute preaching, still teaching all of us.



Image credit:By Extemporalist (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.