POETRY

 

Later


I assist your exodus
from the womb
the tomb of symbols
tucked away
in the free and clear
where years spent
on iced perfection
served to dull
your curves and sharpen
long crystal shards
at the bottom
of an angry pit
descension

Out in sunshine
only paper and pens:
stacks of your body
of work and pitons
tacked into
spackled dry
storage unit walls --
instruments
of permanence
clawing at a firm foothold
finding instead
more crumbling rock

Those fresh empty walls
contain you
deconstructively --
spare parts strewn about
for an era, now
well-labeled and boxed
as if the undertaker
was coming
to measure your shoes

We who wrestle symbols
to the dirt
with stains on our knees
and grit in our teeth
sully our sleeves
with blended tears
find ways to console
yet are reluctant
to allow surety
of definition
when abstract concepts
fall so readily
into our hands
far far from the tree

Instead I wait
and watch you sift
your rustling remains
well-guarded clues
as to who arose
from these cold ashes
why that fire
was allowed to burn
itself out

Or was it snuffed?

Tucked in among
tools of vision
lay a frightened visage
a horrible distortion
of necessary artifice
and only in this
one presence
does the monolith hum
and the jawbone fly
at primates bent
to the psychotic plow
turning up artifacts
you pick through
and place
above your own
destroyed fingers
that have graced
so many heroes
turned to stone

Here in the rubble
of a bunker
you stocked
for so long
naked in the face
of well-tailored oppression
I assist you
in hauling Spartan 
installments to the stark
Museum of Tomorrow
Wad up the ones
that don't suit you
Janitors will dine
like kings upon your
swift and judicious picks

Later when the lock snicks
and breath rushes in
on encapsulated matters

your laser beams
will atomize inert notions
retrain the next
black wave crashing
on an empty shore
to in the ebbing leave
a smooth reflective
pristine solitude
bedecked with relics
from forgotten depths
and for each mote
washed and taken away
to leave just a few grains more

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