Self-Contained Urban Breathing Apparatus
He walks down a perfectly manicured
street in an upscale section of town, not
aware that he breathes through his earbuds
and if his battery dies he could drown.
He walks down a perfectly manicured
street in an upscale section of town, not
aware that he breathes through his earbuds
and if his battery dies he could drown.
its the worst way i can imagine to wake up
some down on his luck prize fighter
a journeyman that has lost
his legs but still possessed through second nature
kneeling over top of you. then throwing overhand rights
to your rib cage for 22 minutes keeping time
with nothing other that opportunity
your mind says scramble and roll out
of bed and swing with all you got
reality is the best teacher. she tells you that you can
sit up maybe 3 or 4 inches at a time
giving one back with each tick. a toll road
sitting up is no better maybe
in the sense that you are able
to survey what is around you illuminated
by some light from the parking lot splitting
your blinds. knowing you should do something and not
having the capacity to render action is a poor mans torture
the kind that piles up with the day to day
traffic jams through the process of the body
just wanting to live. after 22 minutes of feeling life leaving
you don’t care if you die
you just want to sleep
and i did
Do you think I am sweet,
Mild, just a touch
Subservient?
Do you think I am simple,
Naive, gullible, an easy mark
Bullseye Booby?
That is my Mask.
Under that is a burned, hideous
Shadow of a face, a tortured breath of soul
Who has been through more than a Dark Ages
Whore. The sulfurous rank of emotional
Poison gases that could run out every pore
– If only I allowed it – could blanch the most dramatic
Shakespeare actor into retiring his art.
Test me.
Ask for sorrow – you shall have it
In drowning saltwater waves, tsunamis that spare nothing
Neither tree, nor house, nor ship, nor man, nor woman, nor
Child
Ask for anger – you shall have such
Rage as ever blackened out all light from earth, a belching
Cataclysm that tears apart earth’s mantle and let loose the magma core
Itself to blight all existence and suck all stars into a final
Oubliette
Ask for joy – you shall have the
Distilled and perfected spring of mirth bubbled up from childhood
Tales of happily ever after and garnished with maddening giggles that
Almost convince and are only slightly
Mis-timed
I can display frightening depths that you have never felt nor can comprehend
Nor can even poetry express. So next time
You think how pleasing I am, how easy to
Dismiss,
Remember:
I only allow you to think that.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Cradle Roll, Chi Rho, CYF solid
Dependable, understandable, open.
Why did moving a few miles upset
The unassailable truth of inclusion?
Come unto me little children, but
Only if your mother is straight.
Never lend your talents to the table,
If you are a divorced person.
A bake sale is forbidden fruit.
Men are allowed to pray.
Women wear gags from birth.
Ideas heard alone from elders
Women cannot teach men or boys.
Still women are 10 to 1 there on
Sunday morn and night, Wednesday,too.
And all revivals with dinner on the grounds.
Oh, yes, most especially dinner on the grounds,
This flat land religions looks down on
My mountain kin, our holy rollers,
Our courage to handle snakes in faith.
I am instructed hate is something different
Down here
where grass is blue
and doors slam shut.
K. Bruce Florence
That steady, drumming, heart beat
echoes through your blood
wakes you up in the morning
keeps your thoughts always running wild
as your fingers tap out the rythm of your pulse
it’s a promise
made before you were born
It’s ‘a-thousand lightnin’ bugs rising in the cool night air of June
it’s the dirt under your fingernails from planting
and taking life away in your garden
it’s the sudden jolt of a bird flying straight into a window
while you prepare lunch for your kids on the other side of the glass
The soul, day dreaming
gazing through the windows of your eyes
telling you “there is no meaning you don’t invent for yourself”
interrupting your thoughts
when they get too rowdy.
It’s a promise,
made before you were born
It’s singing out loud in the car
to a song you don’t know the words to
It’s smiling when someone tells you they missed you
because you know the feeling, you were missing someone else
It’s crying because certain movie script writers
can just get you where you least expected it sometimes
It’s splattering paint on a canvas
not out of frustration but simply because it feels good
all these things and life
the one we start with
the one we end with
It’s a promise
made before you were born
Twilight quivers overhead
flies its kites—the stars—
above trees then hangs
fireflies from oak and ash
there to burn their rounded
torsos like so many topaz
the spring equinox’s answer
to winter solstice’s
glittering ornaments.
As sky sings its aria
of cloud and wind
on one branch a fox rests
flattened like a river bank
after a flood. Only his tail—
white-tipped—rocks back
and forth like foam
at the crest of waves.
The birds know the secret
That I am just learning.
That nature in her season is always right,
That every act of being,
Whether understood or on time,
Is just as it should be.
The impatient budding,
Pushing against stiff gray shells.
The exuberant bloom,
Fiery, sure confident with ecstasy.
The elegant last ember, final defiant and glorious stand against forgetting.
And the long wait for the now.
The prophetic pale grey horse is now unleashed
and released from his stall, like a young eagle
hatching, leaving his nesting place.
His freedom dawns a season of famine,
disease, destruction. Sons rob their fathers
of lifetime savings for a momentary
mountaintop. Meth replaces myrrh,
hoping to just stop the pain. Listen!
You can hear hoofbeats in the distance.
Do I need help with my ass I ask Do I
need to strengthen my glutes Yes I say
For as much as you end up falling
you need to be prepared so I cycle
against the rolling foot rests I bob up
and down and run in place and breathe
like the fat man exercising that I am
I breathe like a frustrated horse I
breathe like an old refrigerator
humming as it quivers and dies no
more cool no more ice just defrosting
meat just warm hisses and dripping
sweat my thighs burn my calves burn
my lungs lie down and weep themselves
to sleep Do I really need a stronger ass
I ask Stay upright for once and we’ll see I say
