December 2024

touring the empire

at midnight

There were forests and wildlands at the outskirts of the empire––still, can you imagine?! All quaking earth and quail whistle, where roaring waters sounded ceaselessly. We were paid to visit them, as translators––not very much, as everyone believed that none of the forms of this land had anything informative to offer. What they had to say was so much more than the intelligence the emperors were after but there wasn’t a word for what it was, so we returned without much to say, accepting pennies for our silence. We said nothing, too, of the stifling emptiness they built of gilded halls of recycled data sets, sharpened to cut the earnest pilgrim at every edge. The naked emperors bled, too, but no one spoke of this––neither the blood nor their nakedness. The dogs followed at a distance, to lick it up. There was no room in the shelters in the shadows of the golden halls, so we took our numbers and got in line with the others while the shining halls stood empty, dripping blood with the wind and the dogs howling through them.

gone with

the tide

Then we came to the lamp, singing. What fun there was in those moments was not to be had, but had us. Then, stopping just short of being stretched to taffy with laughter, we parted. Time to go. The only way to hear was as an outcast. Inside, the ears get stopped by the noise of building fortress walls. Goodbye, each called, to find us again in waters, blooming.

mic check

in the rain

It’s best not to make a nest of the unspeakable. Still, for the ones on the mics, the rain was not real unless they could sell it. So I turned them off and listened to the rain. She had so much more to say.

sidling up

between membranes

When winter stills the air from vapored vowels of our mouths into crystal-edged mirrors between us, I want to imagine that what follows will be sharp enough to see through to the other sides of ancient wounds and cut the teeth of inner ears on choral voices bathing in the residue of final breaths, still unheard. And so I look on, ignorant and wanting while the departed clip still-growing fingernails, blowing steam rings over my head.

wilding

to go forth, into seed, carrying on

If one day when finally tone-deaf I should walk guffawing into the solemn halls, swishing gauze skirts to knock stolid bishops over wooden kings while laughing too loud and blowing smoke rings, it may be observed, by anyone still living who knew me when I was more mild in manner and patient in my time, that she had been a patient woman, once.

But, as these things go, by the time the cork is good and gone, so are the ones with any memory of milder times. So, I will have to be ready when I finally go, to enter with full conviction into the role, because patience, however much a virtue, will only do until the time for waiting has run out, and after so much of that one has to decide to give up the temporary shelter that comes of waiting and dive in full and fast to what certain strangers will describe as the antics of an eccentric elder at fashionable parties, who, after all was just relentless with her offhand remarks, head back and laughing the whole time.

intermissions

recollected

In the in-betweens
we salvaged, bandaged,
offered tea,
and from pieces of
our collective wreck
stitched together
by patient hands
a story,
singing.

one beginning

an original affirmation

Take it, I said again, and gave
this body to mirror you an origin
in chorus of looping yessss, as
susurrations waving shores
to where they waited, wanting
words to answer but I had only
one. It was yes and child
yes again, and there they
were yes child and here,
meaning all of it.

Month: December 2024