the indiscriminant dry hand of time

11/30/05

there really is no reason for this, the steel switch that kills,
the evil thing that spills
black ink on the sun –
it doth make me still

though beside me that airy turbine still does turn and blows
in abandon my lesser dreams of the night
a bit further just in spite
down a darkened alley gray and tight in the
eyes of a child like me, wrapped in fright
amongst the cloth of what we sense tonight,
the feather touch of fingers on flaccid cotton skin
like the cold and dry breath of the way stations
I visit and pay homage to
at the end of these icy last days

unfinished (littering in the premature)

11/12/05

dull thud to the back of the head
is what it left me feeling
covered in the stale notes of rust and gasoline –
knees scraped on steel just healed from
a tumble to the ground
as all this came slowly
to a halt.

but I lacked the strength to grab the box and haul
myself back to the bed
even though it was a short way up and a long way out
to where the end lay
like an afterthought in the dying afternoon,
an old sister mottled and forgotten