tryingpoetry

Swimming

Swimming through air My arms don't pull There's no weight

And time ticks so I fall

I can breathe Or I can swim But I'm not a fish

This isn't my water

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Ship em off and now we're alone quiet at home

Simple chores and tidy tasks sprint ending at last

The time spinning towards another place Where my mind is easy and the water doesn't rest

Tell me when we go To listen to the noise again

Giant chants and falling trees screaming glee

Then we're not alone quiet at home

Iron

Slippery iron dripping off the meat smells mineral

The back cracked bone shot out pale and wet

snap

I want to drive South

I want to drive South to TX And look the people in the face Who let children live like prisoners

And then walk past them And take care of those kids

Pit

Look up the black gravel slide down again the glittering sound as rocks cascade down

the pit in the center glows and steams eggs rotten rise in the mist

Climb and slide and slide

knees touch the hot stones sweat drips through them down

Get up and run and slide and slide

The horizon high and sharp

For one million years yet younger than the stars

Get up

Declu

There are ways through my mind mad and fey they call me some days

origin and seeds of the things that hide there ungrown

incomprehensible and tangible by turns but Declu gets in the way

Declu that trips me and Declu that distracts me and Declu which never had a name before

Two years hard labor and Declu grew strong wicked gremlin and glare evil

I know your name now Declu and I know your shape and you will be unwrought

One Teacher

She's hard as cocomino sandstone letting time and water to the right place

She's covered in ocean tumult and calm from moment to moment

She's the soft soil yielding and happy to raise new plants

Listen and learn practice and see

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Stinging cold pinpricks on my ears tiny ice hailing down Grit mixed with sting around my eyes soil and sweat Cold plastered to my back and belly cotton shirt soaked to the bone A shoulder's twinging stitch pulling at tangles of roots

caught

I CAUGHT THE RAGE BUT I DIDN'T KNOW IT I NEVER KNEW I HAD SWALLOWED IT GASPING FOR INFECTED AIR MY MYSELF FORGETTING DEEP DOWN THE THING I DIDN'T REMEMBER BLOOD RED FLESH ON BONES SLOW SMOLDER HEAT BURNING MY BELLY ON REPLAY IN MY MIND BUILDING ON ANGER RECURSIVELY BOTTLED UP LASHING OUT

INTO THE NIGHT until i lay by my one true truth and love and a wave comes cold clear water washes my face like a drug floods my veins again slows my heart

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One tree's trunk and another's bough climb into a dark sky

I lie in the warm water thinking to myself wondering when I'll die

The oldness crept into my body and the worry in my mind didn't quit as my bottle went dry

The billions of human souls and my unending luck feel like tragedy's unlit coals

Far from the noise in a forest once logged where the elk walk at will

And the river's run close, braided behind the dam singing the mist into the air

The hills rise all around and a fiery mountain to the north slush falls down

Switchback to switchback high in the clouds where my mind lands now