photo by Brent Clarke/High Noon Photography © |
existentialism is a stomach bacteria rail yard in America
(for
a memory I have of Sonja Sanchez)
Bergson
defended
our
free will
with
an idea
that
perpetual motion time
was
a malleable, permeable
and
elastic membrane
Sartre
was watching
hidden
in the folds
before
sunrise
he
wanted
an
indefinable
for
himself
humanity
ought be
he
thought
yearning
and pours
learning
what pores
choose
intake or exhale
there
is more
than
a slake
peddle
ware
parade
kingdom
and
throne
before
cage
at
stake
in
order for
disorder
to be
orderly
we
were always
hungry
for later
right
now
we
scurried
into
that last box car
lurching
slowly away
on
the far western end
of
the yard
we
would dream
coal
fire huddled leaning
preening
our substantial empty
a
can of beans waiting
our
pockets full of fingers
inside
our minds
we
were sating and sinning
appetizing
our wide eyed look
we
were gambling for dinner
we
were entertained
we
feared and loathed
ever
being completely still
we
were time
we
wore it
we
swore by it
we
knew
the
difference
between
a door and a window
between
facticity and quietism
we
sought clarity and milky glass
between
this world
of
reflection and flesh
between
bones, skins
and
articulations
between
heavenly bodies
and
what pools desire unseen
between
nations rising
and
their partners in decline
between
moving goods on iron spines
and
stretching o'er what
once
was a pioneer land
feeling
our way home
between
a few moments of sleep
and
the promise of dawn again
between
stolen handfuls of Apollo
and
our bellies full of Venus