Time built a city in me,
all abandoned buildings.
forest's spread behind their walls;
nobody believes me.
I recognize the warnings;
thoughts don’t come together.
presence blurs, snaps back, collapses,
slips the golden tether.
The time machine: my bone, my
breath, is barely held together,
spread through points of light and absence,
no clear line of travel.
I find myself behind who’s eyes?
unclear who’s even seeing.
a child with an ancient’s mind,
lost in apology - despairing
unanswered prayers, and fists held up
to heaven by someone else’s angered fear.
what god did they petition?
one of their own making, and one that said “No”
by inventing me.
A moment punctured, then next, and next
. . . procession past the watch hands;
little needles wound to wound, little
by little, mistrust deflates memory;
mist rusts even metal eventually.
no wonder fog comes over me;
i miss Wonder, deeply.
in my own time,
recall goes to a light
long wand waving through
unanswered questions,
perhaps because
i was not brave enough
to ask, i was not
Brave.
gone to thickly moated light,
iron ghosts press out against
the outer rims deep shadow;
slow stars and souls
skirt the false light of
lampposts, hung there by posse’s
formed to hunt down the formless, to
disembody darkness - with disembodied
mob mentality.
dusk and its followers sentenced to exile
by throngs of neon.
something rebels in reverent anarchy - - moves
to flood out lanterns and floodlights.
mystery steadied, withheld and held in tact,
that the dark hours, little by
little, might heal
themselves.
