TRANSITORY

The night is filled with weak
and whispery electronic beeps,
the bells and whistles
of an invisible choir.
You get the feeling that
some vast, spider-veined hand
is out there, doing the tapping,
spinning the wheels, finessing
the messages out to those
that need to hear them.
You are not among the chosen
few at the moment, and so
to you, those notes are nothing
but the deranged white noise
of solitude, not quite ready
to let you in, to hear
the final translation…

ORTHODOXY

My throat was stone
when I broke the words
when I broke bread with misgivings
and left them by the wayside
when I formulated the current
and predicted a devastating
flood of one. Leave me be.
I fulfill this empty backwash
I can’t swallow. I am an abandoned
project wallowing in bureaucracy.
I am a sign of the times, a shadow
slowly grading out. I am an ink blot
at the end of a contract never signed,
I am the half-finished condo tower
glinting in the tired sun…

THE TEXT…

flickers, certain as a serpent
yet lags behind the cold-blooded
slow boil of the sun; you may
extract the best test results
like a venomous lozenge
from beneath the tongue
you may say these jaws are open
and call this elixer compromise
but your smile is fixed
and rictus loves to meet itself
at the edges from which
it’s already run…

ASHEN WHIRLPOOL

A blind eye, flushing the icons
from our system, oh, the charcoaled
shadows, the blank window eclipse,
the black-out curtains, the half-painted
headlights that sent the enemy
down an alley full of sight
to the point where our own hands
could reach them…

BATH OF DREAMS

Nothing to worry about.
It’s all as it seems.
The snapshot composite
monolith is crumbling.
Your whispered razor blade
can slit the beast at the seams.
You can barely contain yourself
in the blood that’s begging
to be spilled. You can count
the steps before your lucky break
was broken…