my hands are shaking, my heart complains meekly,
minute-by-minute, hourly, weekly, monthly, yearly,
lifetime by lifetime this waiting will pass over,
through, around, like water
passing a sunken submarine,
too deep, too lonely for even the sharks.
thinking, hoping, eagerly checking
my phone, refreshing my browser,
thinking, thinking, thinking,
that the history of the greatest man
is shorter than that of a grain of sand,
thinking, thinking, praying to gods
that no longer exist, thinking,
how loud my feet are tapping, how
badly this could go, how triumph
lies at the other side of this gulf, how
failure will strand me here.
Author: Wolf
Born on a farm and never recovered.
forget
I am very tired and,
all else aside,
I would prefer
not to be
and here I am now,
humming a song I can’t quite remember,
making memories I’ll soon
forget
Man In Silhouette
some days we all turn to silhouette:
negative space
in the shape of men,
of fathers, of brothers,
of traffic guards and fieldhands,
hollowed-out bankers,
nebulous thieves.
some days we all turn to silhouette:
defined by our lack of detail,
our absence of color, of
texture.
These days seems to come and go
a little more often as we get older,
these silhouette days, these
abstract, disorienting dawns,
the joy bled out by –
who knows? God’s Paintbrush,
or a vitamin deficiency,
or the burning of the world.
The Impossible Forever
The first man to live forever has already been born,
somewhere in the muck to a family fed by corn and
alligators, a place with mosquito the size of fists,
and our system’s thought of ‘everything’, but it hasn’t thought of this:
compounding, and expanding, exponentially returning,
a dollar to the swamp-man feeds a fire ever-burning,
The change in his piggy-bank, properly invested,
will buy your home, your business, and anything requested
the forever-living man will destroy the world we know,
but if such is the cost of eternity,
the world must go.
a cold pebble
There’s a cold pebble lodged somewhere in my heart,
and on the dark days,
the winter days,
it leeches all heat.
But my heart is not stone;
no, there is just a little, cold pebble,
and if I’m careful,
and lift my head towards the sun,
I will keep warm.
Scaling Sheer Cliffs
Remember, when your grip is loose,
and the dirt is calling you down,
that there are those who climb mountains for fun;
humans, like you, using fists and toes,
fingerholds and crampons,
waving their arms for circulation,
always moving towards the stars,
all for fun.
So whatever mountain lies ahead,
and whatever reason you have to scale it
(vengeance, pride, lust, greed)
remember that there are those who make harder climbs
for fun.
A Little Bit of Tenderness
Put your head on my lap, child,
and I will hum you a song
my great-grandmother knew the words of,
and my father knew to whistle.
Feel my fingers through your hair, child,
and know –
really, know –
the world is formed of rough stones,
hard bark,
wild things living in unkempt homes,
and the world is formed of us,
of rare softness,
of mild humming,
warm tea, lazy cats,
things that keep us from becoming stone,
and bark,
and wild.
