The Poetry Marathon

As I was walking outside I ran into my neighbors, an older couple.
The lady pet my dog and said she liked his big head.
I do too.

The bottom tip of the state,
away from the cornfields
but not away from the nothing
and the air just thick enough
to be the South.

‘Little Egypt’ the area is called,
because of the rivers
and the reminders all around
of something ancient.

There’s something scary in the dark and the adults need cartoons to help them sleep at night
after we open their phones all day for the state-mandated doses of paralyzing fear.

What’s left to do but reach out for some kind of comfort?
But the small talk is tinged with violence.

suspicion, the other– is it you?
Who do I blame?
Is it you?
It’s them.
Are they you?
etc.

Terror and reprieve from the terror – whiplash
content, engagement, repeat.

Like our Airbnb host in Lisbon, a woman from Angola, said as she looked at her grandson watching cartoons,
“It’s good to distract the mind.”

Opened the blinds to let the light in for the first time in a long time.
Apartment windows across the parking lot,
background processes, gadgets, holy books, and dust,
three white walls and a fan that hums
forever, burning fuel like a living, temporary thing,
pushing away oppressive heat or cold.
Information overload and understimulation,
sound and failing vision,
everything you are
sinks into a screen that replaces
everything real
as the rest of the world retreats.
Thoughts get dark and fantasy becomes a need.
Deprivation leads to a blind and reckless hunger.

It’s open to interpretation.
Becoming or going,
whether living is movement only
or something more discrete.

In every drop of water I see a face
In every empty space I see myself.
Wandering through purgatory alone
Because heaven and hell is other people.

Year a needle scratch
endless on repeat.
A memory half-made up
A sensation far too real
Still hurts.
needle scratch
endlessly on repeat
Blind expertise       Perfect consumption
Invisible skills         Pretend to believe

Press refresh
By year a needle scratch
endlessly on repeat.
Memory half-made up
Sensation far too real
Still hurts.
A needle scratch
endlessly on repeat
Blind expertise       Perfect consumption
Invisible skills         Pretend believe

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Press refresh
Year by year a needle scratch
Endlessly on repeat
Still hurts.
Expertise pretend      Invisible consumption
Blind half-made up    Believe

Year by year
scratch.

Glass
Tin indium oxide
Keratin
Niobium pentoxide
Phospholipids
Hyaluronic acid
Meissner corpuscles
Pacinian corpuscles
silica coating
Lithium
Blood
Light

I never planned past the 1st hour
Time keeps moving until it STOPs
Public admonitions of public thoughts
when every little Twitch is a riddle.

Muscle memory forgets what it’s chasing
while the conscious mind is just making up stories.
But the hive keeps everything
in its proper place.

whats real whats real whats real whats real whats real whats real whats real whats real whats real whats real whats real whats real whats real

It seems to go on forever,
a mass of life tempting eternity
with words and radiation.
Opinions churning in front of a billion faces
with the persistence of a plastic sea.
Typing like the fangs still have venom
comments invent new fantasies of war,
and in the confusion truth becomes honest
as anecdote becomes signal and data the noise.

This is the world now,
perpetual motion
of waste,
addiction and need,
substance and text.
Take the hit and move on to the next and the next and the next.

“Hello my baby
Hello my honey
Hello my ragtime gal
Send me a kiss by wire
Baby my heart’s on fire
If you refuse me
Honey you’ll lose me
Then you’ll be left alone
Oh baby, telephone
And tell me I’m your own”