a current

a current running through my head,
from ankles down to toes.
it sinks into uncharted spaces
in between my bones.

in recesses of ice and fire
where indulgences once lay--
the seven deadly sins
grow less fearsome by the day.

I come to know the sound of it
when midnight comes to call--
for without this vibration
I would never know at all.

the current running through my head
grows softer with each line;
I tune my poems, verse by verse
before I call them mine.

with another brought together
I am given right to rest
and the current running through my head
sinks down into my breast.

after

after all this month has brought me
you would think I could summon up
more than four lines
for a final moment before the curtain falls


but after all this month has done to me
you're lucky
to get this.



I am a
jumbled, mangled
sunburned and sleepy
pile of words

used too often;
I need all the ones I have left.



--see you next year.

company

when I can't conceive one more marriage of notes,
they're already tossing the bouquet.
then turning 'round
to march down the aisle
in another dapple ensemble,
sweeping a train
of more instruments than I can name
over lyrics tossed
like petals from the rose.

where I can't even manage a paragraph
without falling irrevocably
into bad metaphor,
lost again in what one idea
can make of another,

when rather than blending,
I should toss them, let them
bounce
crash and shatter paint flecks
that I can fit together,


a puzzle that at least
has a picture of its ending--
more so than a paper
with a set number of lines
that I can only fumble to fill.

--
Title is somewhat prompt; bigger prompt is this. I've been watching the live feed all day, and it's been amazing--unlike my poetry today.

worry

lowering my mouth and hoping once again
the flow still trickles by, enough to sip;
my own personal Ganges,
devotion and destruction, poison
I let murk the water
instead of filtering for gold.

because I know it will come--
I've reached that point by sheer practice
where these words come pre-assembled,
shaped to fit this space,
and some days all I have to do
is create a funnel of fingers
and let gravity do the work.

but I am still
all too used to the feel of rusty faucets,
trembling, but refusing to pour.
so I fear these words, this page,
every day.

worry for
those words most relied upon by bad metaphor.


because it always worked in the past
to carry all my smashed eggs in the same basket--
less to sift through,
as the majority rots through the weave.
but I would find myself inevitably hungry
and left with nothing
but broken shells.

--
Title is prompt. I was staring at this picture while writing it, but it really doesn't have anything to do with the poem. It's just an amazing picture.