Month: September 2021

The Flowers Breathe Smoke to Forget

If you bottle it up
and blow it out
you’re doing a whole
fuck of a lot
better than I am

I’d rather break it down
and breathe it in—
for the sake of self-deprecation
and future devastation,
if nothing else

because once you destroy
the person you thought
you knew, you get to rebuild
them just like you
always wanted, just like
you always thought you would

now get to work
on a better Babel
if you can.

Rue Jeanne-Mance

aka in replication of the sound of a body tossed from two stories on a late summer night on a dark, leafy street in Montréal—depending on the weight of the bones, et al (nails and hair and other organs and such, etc., etc.), the angle of contact, and the fundamental structure of what lies beneath; the chemistry of the concrete, the temperature of the pavement, the age and tone and character of that course, unforgiving stone:

¡¡shhh-MAKK!!
*fsss glubglub*

And if you can hear it

tapping through (no that is not enough, ask Rilke),
scathing through (so what who cares, it’s been done before),
screaming through (ok well anyone with half an ear can hear that)—
pulsing through
clamoring
hammering
disheveled
merciless

until nothing and nothing and nothing is left,
well that’s not hard to hear
that’s not hard to tell

it’s after that

…after that

when everyone forgot to give chase
they’ve all been tuckered out and turned off
tarred and feathered
given up the good fight, passed out

it’s then
if you can still hear it

murmuring
below

from the whispery willows where once we
have not yet lain
deep
at the core of the earth’s muck

it’s then you know

you never asked for this
it’s the gift and the curse
you’re grateful and perplexed
resolute yet beginning to accept

it is meant for you
you are meant for it

(the dirt is dazzling
this brine is brilliant)

and you’re at least half-a-step toward
what you’ve heard to be called

peace

even if for but a few fleeting moments,
then it’s gone.