Spoilage

Lightning dawns on the horizon;
eyes drifted upward 
breathe in the glittering show.

Water pours from the sky,
harvesting cake from my mouth.
Pasty white frosting bleeds
off my chin and down my chest
like melted clown skin.

Thick copper strips of wax
seep through my pores,
boiling golden warts 
upon my shoulders blades,
then growing transparent
and leaking feathered crimson
down my spine.

My skin is whipped egg whites.

Molded cheese blossoms in the sky,
as acrid blue fireworks.
Crystalline flies
swarm from the explosions
drowning me in stagnant hues. 

Radiated, I finish my pastry
and fall limp into the cesspool of grass,
swarmed by green mechanical thoughts.

Possession

A gleaming drop,

a Sapphire ruby squeezed
from my knuckle.
A moment in time,
a single red dot.

This word "my":
my knuckle,
my house,
my property,
my blood....
hmmm,
really?

Not so sure;
really.

Aren't we just borrowing?
Tirelessly borrowing.

I hold this three-foot square,
my shadow a bit more,
but I will move,
eventually I will be gone.

Maybe not gone
in the sense of "nevermore",
but certainly gone
from this spot, 
and then from this shape.

Even now I am fleeing myself,
leaving that self of a moment ago
for this self here and now.

And so now,
a day later,
the Sapphire ruby is gone,
and so too
the crystal pain
that marked that moment.

I don't think we are that different.
We seek to possess,
to hold onto something,
if not many things
then at least a few,
and how futile it is.
And we know this,
yet we struggle to surrender.

I know this is nothing new.
I'm not more enlightened
for having written it,
nor will you be so
from having read it.
But I am compelled,
so I write,
and if you are still reading,
compelled you are as well.

So there's that.

Needle Head

Brain stuffed;
thoughts like couch foam
spilling from my ears,
filler forced out
by some gleaming diamond thought
I can't quite mine.

How Difficult

How difficult it is
to pull our eyes away
from the "all-important" events
of daily life,
and how much beauty is overlooked
as our eyes stare fixedly?

How difficult it is
to have faith
that the events of our daily lives
happen for a reason,
however unclear those reasons may be?

How difficult it is 
to honor the balancing act
that is life,
to know,
even as you struggle,
that for every negative event
a positive one lies in wait?

How difficult it is
when struggle seems 
to always take center stage?

How difficult this life can be.

Contrast

Earlier.

Casino snack bar. 
Cheap tables and chairs
waver in a haze of smoke.
Upholstered benches 
bulging and split.
Backed into a corner

I see him eating.

Feral.

Elbows like turrets

guarding his food.

Chin low,

dark marble eyeballs

rolling back and forth

in their sockets...

I'm reminded of the cat clock

except he isn't smiling.

Later.

Whole Foods parking lot.

Blue-collar worker all the way

standing in dust shrouded jeans,

his white shirt not so white.

The tailgate is down,

battered and bent,

two boys sit in the truck bed,

couldn't be older than eight.

Late-night picnic

spread out on a ratty blanket.

Mouths stuffed with food, 
chins high,

eyes scanning the star-studded sky

with that look of wonderment

only children seem to have.

My smile carries me home.

Eavesdropping

Cricket conversation in the distance,
all legs and antennas,
talk I feel but can't interpret.
Remember parking at work,
a golden kitsch prayer wheel
still turning on the dashboard
of a car next to me...
round and round
as if by some ghostly hand,
and the night's eye
wide with stars
feigning to blink,
but always staring down.