These are the chinchilla days
Clenching and releasing
Chewing and perceiving.
This would most respectably be called
Disquiet
But why play that game
Designed by those who do not
Sympathise
This is called vicious by me
Vicious at the unknown sources
At the unravelled
At carboots loaded full of petals
Of being trapped in the folding space
Where the elegant utilities
Indifferently crush
In the way
In the way
You don’t want to think about
Your finger jammed in a pine door
You don’t want to think about, even moreso
Your whole body
In starving
In flame
In trauma at the gunshot.
These free standing pegs
These pitiless moments
Lavish consumption
When your memory is cold bug
These are automaton days
In minutes’ dawn and wink,
Insipient to all living things
Cherish the .
What intriguing images emerge as your poem unfolds. The phrase “chinchilla days” captured my attention, and then I followed the poem surprised by many of the images — carboots loaded full of petals, finger jammed in a pine door, a body in flame. All of these and more did not make sense to me, but they kept me moving forward. Perhaps that captures the meaning of chinchilla days.