1.25.2011

THE HORIZON OF MEMORY

Consider the
on average
seventeen hundred friends you have made
twenty one hundred books you have read
fifty eight holidays you have taken
thousand times as many films you have watched
millions of recorded cells so crowd your brain
you learn to write
if only to keep track of these lists.

As children the
elusive sense of self is sucked
into every mirror, replaced
with fabricated memories
biographical accounts of someone else
wound with threads of
our own history
so of course we write things down
repeat them
to know where we are at in time
our place
silhouettes outlined against a stark
and bare wall
fading after the flash bulb's pop.

Whether through an imaginary history or
memories of the future our
minds travel, our bodies trapped
in the present but unable to lose
the past,
snip the cellular connection,
so when we remember
everything flows like floods
rapids rivers trickles,
brains shrink
memories fold
and our blood is fouled.

Forget the future, he mumbles
through stiff lips
standing still is a slow death

unable to make decisions

the outlook is bleak

released in a silent unseen collapse.

1.18.2011

IN THE YEAR BEFORE THE END

A dense grey cloud hangs over each day
in the same part of the same sky
but I don't think it bears me any ill will
just a thousand heavy reminders of

You creep into my dreams and mostly
I think its only to stroke your own ego
and remind me of your brilliant plans
to evade the unyielding future while its

Victims feast on the bony carcass of winter
and this bleak and dour solstice twilight
dyes each pill red, melting, viscous
in the blood moon vacant, hiding

In pack formation dozens of empty bottles
relay the confusion of past weeks
paranoia, itching, lonely drifting
through nights of spaceless time

I float from where I do not belong into
quiet velvet comforters and satin throw-pillows
stuffed in my face upon waking dry
mouth and sore back pressed against

Austere white walls extend endlessly
in every direction fading into a distant horizon
where the ghosts of a hundred clouds must hang
heavy with rain, spoiled wine, vinegar