Circles version 2.0: Relapsing on your far away sadness in a motel room equally distant
do note that this is the final version of the earlier "circles" poem, this one is fleshed out considerably
There is so much
I wish I could conjure for you
Unchained from the wandering salesman’s bathysphere
My desire for transformatory hypnotism and a matchbox full of secrets
Other than that square of toilet paper with the words my dignity scribbled on it in magic marker
I drift through thinly named places: Belen, Magdalena
On a large enough scale most objects are circular, even towns
And even though I can’t see my orbit
I know I’m spinning a little nearer each time
Unsure if there’s enough hyperventilation in the curve to make a collision
With survival as a moot point, impact becomes the goal
I’m always reprocessing the same moment
To try and make it glow like it did before we exsanguinated the engine
There was a time when hunger was de-facto
So much
The hills we spoke of rolling down once we’d quit smoking
And holding open ice cream parlor doors for long lines of senior citizens
A laughter like this can mend the smoothest bruises
But once it’s gone there’s just the same road-dust and a feeling that you’ve seen this film before
The shimmer of Tuesday afternoon concrete
Second degree clowns and vengeful clockwatchers vie for ambrosia in the gears
Movie theater shifts into a railway station
Joan of Arc on ecstasy for that thousandth quiet open casket viewing
And all the ethereality of forward liquid motion
Drunk down in a hot-shot of Jonestown koolaid mustache nostalgia
I was worried that this might be when we wake up, give up, throw up
Our hands in the air, plastic rabbits fall out the sleeves
And there’s still so many stones left undanced upon
Moonpools of cool river flesh not yet splashed in
So much to know and try not to forget
Tricks for a new kind of deceit
A fresh way to disappear though it only treats the symptoms
The electronically infected hum of wind over sand that was green fields at dusk
Will you be my thief?
The wheels of night-grinding insomnia
Waiting for a promised ratcatcher spark
Sparrows gather nests in old cracked open vending machines
I want to hiss down to the nerve
A Kalahari bone wire if I had enough to start
So much
The Ladybug on the curtain
And the moist filaments of your hair that brush my face when we’re close
Things I shouldn’t notice except in bubblegum subconscious details
I’ll be the Spongebob to your Patrick or vice versa depending on current moodswings
The joke is told, the candles blown
Be my thief
Darkroom birthday-cake technicians lick their fingertips
And I can’t seem to smell anything other than rain on exposed roots
Plans seeded lifetimes ago might still bloom but will have no pollen if they do
High enough up one comes to a place where skinny cows shuffle between lost cars and sunken eyed barbwire
The motel room was furnished for endings
For something postponed and clumped into migraines
A plea for summer
Please don’t scoff at my honesty
I want you to believe it the way it believes in you
We talked all night and never repeated a sound
So much
The multitude of deserts I have failed to cross