ABREWCADABREW

Fumbling, mumbling
I haven’t got a direction today.
In a fix. A jam. A bind.
Bound, but not tied.
Came loose.
Undone.
Now grappling, struggling with my tattered strings.

Fumbling, mumbling
It’s the trying that gets in the way.
Or so it seems whenever I do.

「People shifting moving pictures wandering lost art in museums;
nobodies like scavengers haunting midnight premises,
picking through flash magazines, turning pages without intention.
Don’t fake the inconspicuous, boy – everybody else might do the same.

Burrowing, tunneling, unseen obscene: bathroom-stall conspiracies;
examining and mesmerized, I jot my mobile number on a busy painted wall,
just to see if anybody will ring.

I need the proof I’m wanted.

Unlocking immemorial to see what I can find…

…articulately blind.」

AND HERE is where the waters burn. Stomachs turn. All desires yearn again to be set free.

「Broadcasting temperatures around the world,
the sunspots are back in black again, and here’s mine:
thermometer the asphalt, man;
aye, could be the last you’ll ever see of me.

(And there’ll be no news from the other side.)

I’ve lost my appetite for the pleasantries.
I’m too tired to chew them up just to spit them out – no more.

Ask why the first, but there is no reason,
the world just simply tired me with its overenthusiasm.

How many words for how many times I’ve tried to sort it right?
(It’s the trying that always gets in the way.)
Not the first time, but now the last time.
I don’t want the part time anymore…

…nor any other part of me.」

I want to remember how to slip into quietly,
to unearth the smiles forgotten in me;
those misplaced fossils buried in my depths,
in the petrified stone of a soul I keep…

…jury-rigged.

Wednesday daylight
something’s not right
may be, maybe I…

Subway somehow
wrong way right now
lost myself in the crowd.

Do what they do
chaotic queue
push your weight to get ahead.

Look the other way,
but don’t turn the other cheek;
so what if you’re not strong,
just don’t let them see you’re weak.

But then I can’t speak
and I freak out,
drowning in a tidal wave
of a brutal rush hour crowd.

Such a struggle to get through,
and it hurts, how do you do?
Silence as they go by, goodbye – shout.

But there’s nothing in their faces,
just the look of going places,
like a mask that’s pasted on to keep me out.