On the violence of song

From the roots of breath
burbles the infection -
clouded and gray,
a machine soaring into the heavens
spewing pus in homage.

What is life,
that I take note of it?
Merely the not-dead
is invention, extending
the fingertips into new realms.
And eternity divine
can cast itself into the putrid flames without change:

We hover in the gap.
Singed, damaged,
bloody consumptives.
One day, one of these
will begin to sing.

Cutting, slashing
the howling song
Rouses the ashes
in hallowed vibrations,
the voice's spewing spray
coats the moaning trees.

If I were not I

After the wedding I knew I needed to make peace with my brother, so I spoke with him, and told him that I loved him.

He was distant, but seemed re-assured, and almost penitent.

I was tired; I went to go take out my contacts. In my room, everything was blurry, but I knew where my glasses were. I took them out of their case, only to find them rendered useless and unwearable by rows of ominous runes etched into the lenses. I could not read them, yet a few meanings jumped out at me: evil, revenge.

"a curtain of snow"

Everywhere, in strange glittering figures, all over the walls.

The first attempt was by a postal delivery man. I went to get something to use as a weapon from the utility room, and grabbed a large screw driver. I thought I might try to face him, but sensing my own doom, I escaped out the basement. Immediately, the snow began to pour, inches of it every minute, and I knew I wouldn't make it very far.

The second attempt.

I was in a wood, waiting endlessly with my sister. A man approached out of nowhere - there was no time to run. I started to back away. He asked me to verify my name, which I denied, giving the name of one of my best friends instead. As he stopped to ponder this for a moment, I turned and began to run. Once again, the curtain of snow.

Then, he had chased me out of the snow and into a library. We slowed to a walk for civility's sake, and I kept trying to think of an ending in which I escaped, but I was losing hope. A librarian approached me with a slip of paper, asking me to verify my name. I once again denied it, giving a different name, only the last name Garlin. I could see the door to the archives off to the right, if only I could make it that far. I heard the man whisper something to the librarian; she did not reply, but must have shown him the paper, as he then said "I just wanted to make sure."

I heard a click. I dropped onto my stomach beneath a table. He was standing over me and my head was about to explode. I wondered what it would be like.

A Feast

The orphan smiles.
When he realizes that
he is only somewhat lonely:

Ants in droves make lines
across his feet,
leaving his legs spotted red -
It reminds him of kisses.
Muddy earth
soft, oozing
stench of many lives
caresses him, a mattress.
And the wailing of others
soothes his ear.

He sighs.

Across the fields is going
the wanderer.
Perhaps he is singing.

In the houses, people are touching
and bodies are warm.

Morning comes,
soft and damp.
Already the flies are buzzing
Hymns of praise and thanksgiving.

Decay/Desire

A concrete slab.
Yes, I am lying there;
Night stretches on.

Time runs in reverse;
Memories are now:
weirdly frozen
fixated on moments of sickness
dizzy, rimmed with sourceless light

There, it is rolling up again,
dust and maggots fat with hypocrisy
In my exhausted throat.
I haven't breathed in days.

Deeper in, my heart keeps beating
There is blood all over,
and it dreams of freedom.

They say you know, and that you feel it run up from the tips of your fingers, firing along neural pathways until it registers as a sense of loss in your mind, when a tiny sparrow falls from its nest. You sense its course, know intimately its acceleration and air resistance in the gravity you created in the hopes of keeping worlds together. You perceive the tiny jolt, and instantly see and realize its butterfly implications, as it strikes the ground. You watch as it writhes, frantically, with intense pain it can neither understand nor conquer and its last heartbeat is eternally in your mind.

We pass by this moment every day. We do not notice, and would not comprehend if we did. You, however, created, perceived and comprehended this, instantly and eternally. You will never forget the tiny sparrow's life, its fall, its death, its pain.

What must it be like, to live eternally as you do, knowing the feeling of every life, never to forget it. Often, forgetfulness and a tendency to self-centeredness make life tolerable for us. But was this put there by you, to make societal life and what we call productivity possible? Or are they constructs of society's demand for productivity, primitive blockades to an intended experience of life? Not that we should ever be meant to comprehend all lives as you do, but to take more note of the ones we do encounter. Ugliness, fragility, suffering, death- what if we never forgot them, and felt them more as you did? What would it mean, to see leaves die in the fall, or to see the tiny sparrow plummet and impact? Would we stumble and grind to a halt, a bundle of nerves and reactions? Would the world grow even more quickly old and tired, or would it be more new and perpetually awakening?

We are all the tiny sparrow. Somehow, we think we are so much more. When really, there is nothing more precious to be: eternally known, unforgotten, created, loved.

ich klage
du rauschst
wir senken weinend
stumm in das Ereignis
der Vergangenheit.
Sie vergisst dass wir dabei sind.
so leise flüstern wir

die Namen der Wasservögel
die schreien
zusammenkrachend

Unheil.
habe ihn verneint
doch
gab er mir,
Welt und Himmel.
Verrat ist denen nichts,
sie haben seit ewig gewusst
meine Zukunft

Fragility

The bird calls with long voice
along the valley's deepening rift,
darkness pours in
Carrying the sound beyond its echoes.

Away, away
until the source is no more

Decay touches the wing,
strokes gently the feathers.
They are going into the ground
Forgotten.

There is no refrain,
no repetition without destruction