head in orbit, ankles in the mantle

5/29/18

there are tree stumps
who have more answers
than I do
my cloud is tranquil
but complacent

and free of examination
but an unexamined man
is not worth the living
and what’s more invisible
than this corpse above ground
I am a specter
to you all
not because I am dead
though I am truly gone
but because I exist on a plane
between the void and the sky

it’s why my heart inflates
like a balloon under pressure
why my brain snap-freezes
like horses charging into ice
why my legs buckle sideways
like a trestle torn apart
and the main line rail
never makes it to the next stop

people hate the spring rain
because it pours eternally
snow stops at the surface
but a freezing cataclysm
buries it

words are a flimsy pry bar
even with a brain of beryllium
it’s never enough, you see
for a man still starving at sea