Poem-A-Day #239 : Ends

Ends

It is a quiet hunger - not a thirst - not the kind that forces people into the woods to force leaves into their mouths -

The sound of leaves of metal accordioning - the folds are pleats in a curtain that moves quietly in a breeze - it swirls the dust in an attic the hair under the bed -

No one can satisfy this hunger - one must forget to survive - oleander in the veins - it smells like old houses creaking in the ocean of night - like trees turning yellow and mast-like before winter erases them -

You must go the way you came - must arm the threat of starving - there is a tree and there is the road and the choice of allowing yourself to move -

And there is the breaking sound of digesting

Poem-A-Day #106 : After Isn't What We Were Promised (An Apocalypse)

After Isn't What We Were Promised (An Apocalypse)

skin is sticky :

there is a tear-stained face and a lot of dirt under your nails

               it's hard to imagine them clean :

the breeze is oddly motionless

sky the color of dirty wash water : if there were rain :

IF there were rain :

it would feel like bathwater

this is not to imply that all is lost :

                                                      though :

this is summer : or a facsimile of it :
there are only facsimiles :

you watch the video of the end again : a pixel is blanking on your device :
it is a tiny white eye : it wants to blink into color :
it is blind :
it knows its limitations and dunces

how many metaphors for 'that was the end and we knew it' can we find in one youtube video :

in the video a man stares into an abyss of water :

                                           water :

                                           a lost thing :

and then there is a cough : simple :

a reflex of the esophagus :

and then there is blood :

you know those zombie movies have it all wrong :

there is so little running : so little ability to run :

and to where :

that building over there where some people are also starving and dehydrated

or the one over there that's burnt to cinders

and what to do once you're there : sit in the brokenness : cry :

you don't have tears