I've heard the talk
of this and that,
these and those,
juxtaposed like pins
stuck on a map,
strings between
the ends stretching
across the barriers
of the jumbled means.
Yeah,
I heard you.
But I was distracted by the
click
clack
click
of the ticking pendulum
on its perpetual swing
between neither this nor that
neither these nor those,
a singularity sprawled
across the polarities
as the thoughts
we only believe-true
travel the vast proximity
between me and you,
between right and wrong,
between God and Devil
and a million other frightful things.
I have watched as Lucifer
stretches his hand across the table
while God shakes his head
and exits the conversation.
Yeah,
I heard the talk.
But when asked,
I pull my lips back
and bare bloody gums
and dope-ground teeth
because I still search
for something to sufficiently
stain my soul.
But this is the sound my bones make:
click clack click
rattle-tattle-pop
I want to hear a tear drop
and bury the sea
till fossils of drowned sailors
rise to clatter their last confessions.
I would bless the curses
left dangling in their mouths.
When I was a child,
I exorcised my own demons
and watched them dissipate
like smoke curling through door-cracks.
When I was a youth,
I saw God walk past me
in an empty parking lot
while I smoked my last cigarette,
and he refused to acknowledge me.
Sometimes, I still want
to call them back from the swine.
So what now?
What talk?
If I saw the Devil again,
I would embrace him.
If an angel passing
would but wave, I would weep.
So tell me now
of this or that,
these or those,
and I'll show you
the all-too-nearness
of the spaces between them.
