GRAZED

 

 

I brushed my palm across dry cacti today

And there they were,

The welts

Performing in lined flesh like irritated pathways to individual alternate histories

Personal in nature, purposeful

Etched there amid the strange twisting waltz of Life and Death

In the palm of my hand

Runners found dark grooves today

And spilled my essence out

Into greedy sand

After that careless brush

 

Minutes escaped me before I realized my wooziness

Thirst and salt were eating away my liquid life

Tearing my mind asunder, segmenting my free soul

While I held my wounded paw to me in abject horror

 

A voice

My voice, cracked and terrible and altogether every-day humdrum beshitted

Asked

 

“Is this what it’s like, to be feasted upon?”

“Is this what it’s like, to be used up and drained into conformity?”

 

So, day by day

 

A cruel wind blows up the standpipe of my unconscious mind

Attempting to sweep me into its claustrophobic bowels

Clogged with briefcases and time cards and receding hairline prevention ointments

Alas, there is nothing I can do save go along with it

This majority urge

This commonplace misery

 

The driving, insistent immensity of it

 

I’ll ask Mama, is this Life?

This draining, inescapable grip of going on and on

Of moving forward?

 

She’ll almost certainly tell me

“Yes.”

“Yes it is.”

 

At this, I’ll sigh

 

Wipe my face

 

Maybe smile at the chances of allowing the truth to hammer me, defeated, into the Earth

 

And brush the cacti again

 

For that is the nature of Me

Reviews

[Mark]

Grazed, hazed, dazed, always amazed with what you have to say. Good one.

[Rob Luciano]

forgive me for being so bold....

but I must record this...

[Rob Luciano]

"For that is the nature of me!"

This is brilliant...No smoke up your tailpipe brilliant.

The imagery is deeply profound, disturbing, and awakening...

The structure looks awkward (can be easily fixed) but once it's read out loud it slides through the tonsils like someone who is regurgitating poison in an effort to heal themselves.

I will have to come back and read this again....

I thought you wouldn't be able to top Van Cleefs & Arpels but you've managed to do just that.

My God Broadie...

Will you ever cease to amaze?

[lark]

That was a real downer.

(duct tape will get rid of stinging nettles. not sure about cacti though)
haha

yep.

you're a trippy one XD

[Wolfwind Words]

Wow! That was amazing!
Such an honest look at life!
The image of the cactus and the hand running acrossed it was powerful. I could feel it as i read.

Life is as life is this piece seems to say.

I liked the way you formed it all together, it flowed perfectly into my mind.

A very enjoyable work!
Infinity's Shadow