Saturday, January 26, 2013

the electric universe (scraps)

the new world!
a blinking whirl,
a dizzy shimmer,
this lurching carnival &
sudden, dreamlike drift -
           have I been here before?
 (electricity's invisible kiss, a clock's devious hiss)

& the atmosphere is crackling
with unsung words
pickpocketed from the mouths
of drunken poets

(this winterbound city
purses her lips, hesitates,
crumbles, burns, shivers,
reassembles.)

the old street still lives
beneath the new street,
the old hotel rooms hum
inside new apartments,
like a clock within a clock,
one pair of hands
in a desperate chase
after another,
sweeping indulgently past hour
after hour,
gathering up seconds like gemstones
as the face yellows
and clockguts rust

(& the rain falls outside
desultory, indifferent,
gathers strangth,
exhausts itself,
spatters, stops)

we are creating a new history
all salvage & twisted rope &
rusted links of chain,
feebly attempting any connection
between empyreal and concrete,
lashing down whatever
embattled spirits we can
(some nights i roll over
and there is a phantom
between us, eyes shut
and hands fists (as though in prayer)
beneath the eave of her chin)

and time clothes itself in
the discarded garb of our old enemy -
Death -
as we inch nearer
to the edge of
an unnamed cliff
only ever trangressed in dream -

(even it, doubling in the
drunken field of our vision,
reveals itself as hologram)

and time,
that awful invisible tyrant
who lives in the wings
hushing every actor
who has yet to
make their eager entrance

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