Quartet of Endless Grey

Wipe your foggy breath off the cold bus window;
the snow-covered scape outside is darker than it.
Watch your faint reflection in the streaky glass;
the bus's harsh fluorescent lights do you no favor.

I never thought hunger could grow larger than the body,
but you don't let go of a chance to prove me wrong.
Never did I look so large as I do through your eyes;
nor have I felt so small.

I once said I'd never regret a thing--
I regret it all now, even the regret.

It's done:
no more happy endings,
no more new beginnings,
no more looking forward,
no more then...

It's all been done:
there's no tomorrow here;
there's only an endless now,
not interrupted by night or day--
an endless drone, an endless hum,
an endless pattern of downward eyes and hunched backs,
an endless silence syncopated by the static of the everyday,
an endless fog, an endless grey,
no one to save...

I forgot the taste of skin,
I forgot the smell of hair,
I forgot the feel of anticipation,
I forgot what it was all about...

Last night god killed himself;
he obviously wasn't divine enough.
Pity us men with rolls on our sides,
scars on our necks, and morning breath.
Pity us, mortals,
You, who's never lived...

(Originally posted on February 07, 2013)

"Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.   

One year in every ten   

I manage it——

A sort of walking miracle, my skin   

Bright as a Nazi lampshade,   

My right foot

A paperweight,

My face a featureless, fine   

Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin   

O my enemy.   

Do I terrify?——

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?   

The sour breath

Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh

The grave cave ate will be   

At home on me

And I a smiling woman.   

I am only thirty.

And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.   

What a trash

To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.   

The peanut-crunching crowd   

Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot——

The big strip tease.   

Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands   

My knees.

I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.   

The first time it happened I was ten.   

It was an accident.

The second time I meant

To last it out and not come back at all.   

I rocked shut

As a seashell.

They had to call and call

And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying

Is an art, like everything else.   

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.   

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say I’ve a call.

It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.

It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.   

It’s the theatrical

Comeback in broad day

To the same place, the same face, the same brute   

Amused shout:

‘A miracle!’

That knocks me out.   

There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge   

For the hearing of my heart——

It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge   

For a word or a touch   

Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.   

So, so, Herr Doktor.   

So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,

I am your valuable,   

The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.   

I turn and burn.

Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash—

You poke and stir.

Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——

A cake of soap,   

A wedding ring,   

A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer   

Beware

Beware.

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair   

And I eat men like air.

Another Storm

Again, like a shot in the arm,
metal piercing the skin,
sharp intake of breath,
and the numbness...
The snow keeps falling
like frozen baby breath,
careless and uncaring,
covering wedding bands
and dog shit alike.

Oh city icy as the skies,
indifferent as only God can be...
Oh city drenched in grey,
draped in cold, drizzling
frost like confetti,
turn your back on me--
for I am blind, I am deaf,
I am mute, I am dead.
I am loss, I'm your heart:
clenched, cynical and cruel.
Turn your back, wilt,
wither, will what you will,
I'm staying, a speck of sand
in your eyes, scratching, cloying,
the only thing left of another storm.

(Originally posted on February 11, 2012)

Lost Winter Seascape with Figures

"Once there was a world you could 

Hold in the palm of your hand,

And upon which the snow was 

Always just starting to fall--

World of a city that lay  

By a body of water  

Where people gathered to watch 

Ships set sail for other worlds.  

And high over the city  

At the edge of the water,  

Stood a great woman of stone 

Whose name no one remembers.  

Once there was a world you could 

Hold in the palm of your hand, 

And, by turning it over,  

Make the first soft snow swirl down  

On the lit houses of those  

Whose name no one remembers, 

But who, it seems now, must have 

Loved one another greatly.  

Why else would they have taken 

The trouble to put her there--

Stone woman who stood waiting 

For ships that never came back?"

- Joe Bolton, from 'American Variations'