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Noises in the wall
Like chatter
Or the clatter of chains
It wasn’t haunted before I forgot garbage day
Once then twice
The wall absorbed the trash
There are things I would rather not see
Things I left to rot
It’s doing its best
Salvaging the broken and discarded
Whoever is in the walls, making do with my junk,
Must be paying penance
For a word alone
It was a coyote
Or a lone wolf
Something savage
It lurked in the shadows
Of dead land
It shouldered the shoulder of interstates and crops
Its scraggly coat
And lowered head
Darting as if in surprise
but no
It was something sage
Something undomesticated
or worse
Something formerly domesticated
Something vengeful
Something worse than rogue
Something savage
We welcome scar tissue into our arms like it’s a good thing
As if it were a long-loved but long-forgotten lover we pretend never made us long-suffering
Scar tissue whose flap signals hardening and distance, both reasons to smile sorrowfully
Scar tissue whose cells allow us to survive
But at an angry and vengeful cost
Scar tissue whose existence prolongs our own as if it had an agenda despite our will to die
Whose will does it heed?
I do not let tears well
That will come later
After the worst
Whatever it is
Always goes one way or the other
There will be a ring
Strangers will answer
I said it’s time for tragedy
And one is here
Listen.
a return to form says the review in the paper
as if today has a bearing on some yesterday long forgotten
the form is beside the point
the return a curse rewritten
something tired and already said
a return
a rerun
a curse rewritten and best left unread
A perfectly nice lady walked by today
Said I must have gotten some sun
I’d been crying
How many streams have strummed down these freckled cheeks, the chords bitter, sad tears
Rueful and grudging
That the enemy might pay!
But on the dark moonlit side,
My gaze, stone
I do not regret the tears I’ve caused
Bitter, bitter
words I’ve said in spite
Rueful and judging
That I might pay!
I am an eager child
Blue eyes lighted like candles
When you come into view
I beam
A moment of hesitation
As I wait for you to return the adoration
Surely you’re happy to see me?
who would choose the fate of fire
the apathy of plunge
blade for blood
in the face of death
some of us shine
brighter
as if destruction was our calling
in life
Tonight I break my silence. This is my open letter to you.
You will always be remembered as a vapor
the heat-wet rising to fog the mirrors,
blurring distinction:
When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw you, too.
But that’s not true
I saw a mirage and what I wanted to see
Last I looked I saw nothing ajar, nothing amiss.
Sentimentality is lost on the broken-hearted.
You fog me no more.
Sun dreams! You are naughty, wakeful spiteful dreams!
Leaving no trace but a whisper, a whisper
Uttered by those who know but stranger to the one whose fate is sowed
In sun dreamed dreams
Your Sympathies: