When I awoke, I was dead,
breathing slate and soil.
Dreams of air stirred my limbs, sent my bones
groaning--
Because I would not atone for sins undone,
Paradise expelled me. And now I lie,
the earth pressing along the length of my body
which turns to dust 'ere flesh it ever were.
***
Knowledge is our death,
I said,
and she rolled her eyes and
stubbed out her cigarette.
***
To be: an atom, a pinprick--
dustmotes and butterflies—
To be a galaxy,
lighting the night sky.
To be Lucifer, spitting liquid iron
into the face of God.
***
to be, or not--
to be a mouse? a slug? a fly? a frog?
to be a king or lowborn maid?
some incarnation cased in this subterranean coffin?
(we buried her in this earthen coffin)
Karma's hard but fair.
I toss and turn, to the sound of scraping shovels.
***
Knowledge is our death,
he said,
and I rolled my eyes and
stubbed out my cigarette
To know transgression is to first transgress,
We both know,
and in our knowing we have already lost
a zero-sum game.
To find a space between sin and salvation,
to find a place to breathe innocence.
Our thoughts flicker like torchlight,
caged by frost and fog on the windowpane.
We have mined our bowels for redemption,
We have combed our veins for indifferent hope:
We have searched in the chasm twixt our lungs
And in that gaping space fenced by my ribs:
I read an oracle's inscription.
Paradise refused us: Paradox moved us.
There's a molecule's breadth between a latte and a
half-eaten egg salad sandwich;
There I'll rest the ashes of my forgotten fire.
***
To be laughter
or to be a sigh
to be the dirt
settling over one’s eyes
***
Born, never born,
under water, under waves.
Can it be said I wept?
My eyes bled open in salted seas,
and so I wept my bed and my raiment
I wept my place and my ensconcement.
Through tears I became my birth,
and so tears mingle in lungs,
mingle in blood until we,
sons of dead stars,
become saline solution. |
Submission Name: Megalomania
