poem 92 of a poem a day for 2012

at the mummer parade of Pandora

all She said
were ghost limbs
and I knew
where to crawl to
where to go to
where Her eyes
lead me home

thinking
I've got one foot so far
into tomorrow's ass
I can't get away
from yesterday fast enough
all the while
I bleed away today and
fall back into where
every night's Moon
wears me thin
to divide

the atmospherics
of my arrogance
my sense of immediacy
with nature's intimacy
are intertwined
are polemic poisonings
sometimes

the skies are angrier
than most other times
I can remember
they bleed as well
only they don't tell
that they understand
where our wounds
are coming from

they only want
those who have not
abandoned their spirits
to be employed
at the parade
of souls just passed
their cries
echoing loudly
against our heads
in drawn down
mutterances and the fenced lies
that we are still in command
of the food chain


the TV still yells at me
from the corner
gives me the creeps
sometimes
so many souls
given to insanity
and thrift instead
of the thrive
of being alive

these days seem
calendar flipped
as if vacated minds
are fashionable means
these days seem
lathed to a lazy haze
a pre-occupational forest
of old growth concrete
and neon
these rip currents
know the mind
falls and fattens
for Gretel's witch
when cage is comfort
and freedom is
the bait and switch

where are the hemlock laws
where are the hidden lotteries
of Shirley Jackson
are they written
into genomic structure
do we stand to breathe
to know anything
more important
than the kingdoms of rodents
who eat all our waste
and indulgences

our own parasites
evolve more rapidly
than we do
we are wasting away
in technological splendor
we are sold on shiny trinkets
and Murano glass beads
it is loud and swirling
and almost inescapable
at this point
the parade that
gives our minds
every free ride
we need
not to bleed
not to care
about each other

another empty head
floats flowered by
quiet murmurs spill
in the wheels turn
still wading the yearn
our hearts at the sidelines
pour and burn
for more
of what we know
without any sense
for more
of what noses are left
can smell
in every way
back inside
our gardens
again

this is how hope is a home
and stays at the window
this is how the dark
of a soul's empty box grows
a suckle mouth to feed
waiting for the bleed
thirsting back into the poem

EJR (c)