Movement
A sidewalk in Vermont plays host
to my inner dissertations
as I walk; and my shoes
are impractical for walking.
My feet are chafed, toes blistered
against frayed sandal straps;
my ankles turn awry
with each rock and pothole they encounter.
A blind progression, this--
action overtaking thought
as I stare down at my feet, believing only
that the destination is worth the pain.
In a purely academic sense,
a floating island
disliking of its latitude
cannot turn the course of tides at will,
but only trust the sea
to know where it should be flowing.
I could yet reach out my hand.
I could rest my feet,
borne back on headlight currents
to a garden where I could quietly burn.
But the cars speed past on unfeeling wheels,
and the laws of relativity dictate
that the slower my pace,
the slower they seem to be moving backward.
Musings
Smoking alone outside at 2 AM:
This tobacco was grown in Eden, I think.
Its poisons eat away at my eternity
As its embers face immortality
In the gutter with the fallen leaves.
I do not want to go back inside,
To turn outward and forget myself;
But it is useless to fathom the mysteries of the stars
While ashes stain my shirt.
I saw that I held no illusions
And wove no pretenses to hide my awareness;
And when God spoke to me she had a model’s face
As she told me what brand of clothes to wear.
Now that I know I’ll die
Outside grace, like this cigarette,
My repentance awaits me at the party down the hall,
Yet another age of innocence
Passing with the starlight.
Profile
Face creased:
Too many expressions of intense concentration
Snaked their way into his eyes
And found home in the creases of his mind.
Sleep does not follow
Into these most tired hours
Where thought laboriously carves out action,
Scratching toward its heart.
Obsessed eyes,
Honed to points of diamond-tipped focus,
Pierce through the night to find the darkness
In the creases of the world he knows.
His patterns etched
Cut deeper than on paper
To form the blurring lines of good and evil
Written on his face.
