poetry in ruins
pain by proxy

what we can't believe we speak
what we speak none polite believe
worst of all is the one who does
just enough
but that is beside the point now

it was a new south city with the old south sensibility
where we never did belong
the virtues of work and church and country club
protecting the polite, the good, from the filth we bring

once then we went swimming, close to the earth
to see the ravens prowling the park
standing guard
against the way they choose to live
a pleasing symmetry, grace and substance
pearls and cocktails
over and against the rest of us,
in our remnants of chaos and violence and disorderly
mindlessness

first you plant something
the ground, the earth, tells me what to plant
not what will grow
so i do it and then to hell with that

they should live by their own rules
whatever they got i could care less

they got no idea what they got til maybe that last second after the trigger is pulled
when it's finally too late
maybe then
crumpled dusty and used-looking in the late summer heat
who's gonna make it pretty now?

later in the night a small rain chiming in the garden
cools finally the suffocating air
calming the night if nothing else
letting the others move on to talk of forgotten
silliness, feral smiles sated , the primal hunt

a shitty way of looking at things
the lackness
it never wavers
the savage smile closing in
we know what's next
everything gets too much
a familiar but nameless prickling clambers though our limbs
takes us in its grip
to that final and inevitable loneness

we feel the whorls, the eddies, the currents
carry us along and are weak against the tide
perhaps we just don't care
just this minute

maybe later
before the locusts come

we weave a soft shroud against the day, the memory
the light that shines on the truth that is unspeakable
the unbelievable we cannot speak
we know well the feel of cotton swallowing our sounds,
stilling our soul, what's left

there's something to be said for silemce

in the night the cold wet rain soothes
prowling round the corners
teasing thoughts like thin wet twigs
they bend with the wind but we
we snap them off like a tornado of summer
leaving behind only shriveling brown laces of death
nothing else

death has its own perfect symmetry

this is sane as we can expect this lifetime
this one we have come to with the inevitability of our madness
the faceless invader of malevolent gaiety
coming through a field of sun-drenched poppies
improbably yellow in the snowy ice born of fear
and finally
silence