they found us in the woods
book of the universe,
how fascinating is it to be made of capricious crisscrosses, ideations
like microscopic waste bisected to ease suspicion;
how lonely must the elements get in their habitual states--
a wall crashing on chafed rock, jumping onto its
snow-covered peak. refuging
the tremulous wind currents that travel with their stolen suitcases;
how mighty must you feel to be called creator & creation, to watch salt
rings increase is size yourself, but still shrinking, shrinking &
shrinking. to know that when an embrace pulls away, so do your
granite cells. to be compared with the three-toed stomp. to choose
to know & behold & ignore. to not know what makes the birds taller
than the trees, to not know of possessions and grey-paged
contempt. to have to agree with what the mud-creatures claim to sell--
oval cakes opaled, yet dispensable. to know of a dandelion
that looks away at this dissonance:
how low must you feel, to be an amalgamation of rubbery disposals,
to have seen, but not heard the diamond elephants. to be so menial
as to measure centimetres using the width of one fingernail, to know
how much you can sell it for to the butcher.
to be condensed wood, liquefied
iterations, to know when the ever-accommodating quota has been
finished.
red as a snowstorm, white as blood, these mindless congestions
like darts set away their pen-nibbed victories as tricolored masses
sink deeper still. did you know that plastic spines are bendable, baroque
tears holdable & mat-rubbed feet washable? despite this,
chequered consequences remain as illustrious as monotonous duty,
yet you stall. deeper and deeper still, body masses give way to final
convictions as machine parts slam themselves on silt
roads like pages tucked away and artwork made from bark. like faulty
reminisces at a conjecture, newspaper clippings cut themselves out
& fly into the frames mounted on wallpapered lookouts as though
warnings have never been deterrent. the wrappers from the
marshes offer their wrinkled bodies as proof, to be forced
to refuse them. to walk steadily loessed land and be held captive
by the beleaguered soil. to accept this fate in your bubble-wrapped
ignorance.