Swept
in a tempestuous sigh
shrugging the breath of afternoon and afternoon
again over forth the same stale bite
sunken somewhere in the back of the shoulders
slung back to weave within day dreams
back when I wasn’t so ocean-hearted.

And I try not to forsake
abusive binges embracing indifference
a bulb of machismo such that never
would break the surface soil
is made ruddy purple in
dry endless fields of arrhythmia.

But I do what I deem fair
demanding add more weight I beg
it be more and more difficult
for I am intrigued by its allure
the basking heat of tendons
in hyper-extension.

   The day begins with chickadees and clouds fumbling the light to my knees. It’s much too early for a Saturday but sleep is done with me. The cement floor has some warmth, the stairs have their dust and the kitchen is disgusting thanks to indifference. I’ll get out of here some day. The coffee is weak when I don’t have a hand in it. Espresso livens up the book I chew at for the rest of the morning. Some pessimist had her say in the margins of how ignorant the protagonist’s love interest is, like someone whispering in the audience of a movie. Her handwriting curls more when she’s mad. There’s a question mark every few pages.

  A free fall
has it been, will it ever?
There’s music splattering against my face
   hot water from the jaws of a thorax
as my spade of a mandible looks to crunch
at the ground like a bull’s hoof.

Or has it yet, or shall it ever?
Visions on the movie screen ground,
much softer now, round more so than before.
   A car ride on a warm day – the lake
   wrapped in the sun’s dust with a few
   clouds napping clumps of cotton on the breeze.
My state – a shattered airbag released.

But there wasn’t a crash or not so yet.
Still, I’m hostage by my own consent
voluntarily restrained by good intentions
and cantilevered by a naivety so stubborn
   it’ll foolishly wait
as it braces for the impact of a smile.

Affirm a balance, ballasted by ballasts removed.

Straightened and soothed by muting.
A hand in the mouth like a canon ball.
Everything heard now is an echo or a dog
out of breath in its sleep.

Broken off long looks like petrified rope
became debris, trash to be swept up.

It got old, don’t we know. Don’t we all.

Was reticence ever a good call
or an affliction, or somewhere in between?
My calm is a frozen river in an old photograph
caked with fingerprints and fiberglass.
Put it back in the stack
   where it belongs.

Old motifs are no good.
There is no body. No ocean glorious
to wake to. No moon to howl out like a salt flame.
No meat, no sweetened tongue or head
welcome home or host.

I will beg no more for the cause.
Forcing my conscious frame
hard like someone’s thumb
running up the stomach of a frog
it’ll shut its eyes tight
and gulp for a future
just as well.

One more time I’ll swallow seawater.
Barnacles and all. Buoys blossom splinters
inside my hull. I’m sitting, March, like
a bus should be coming soon enough
and I’ll never be where I need to be
while splinters sizzle within and
I foam smoke and my skin glows
and my hands – oh my wrought hands
are almost certainly
     bellowing.