Deus Ex Machina: ROAD

Outsider.

Deus Ex Machina: ROAD

 

Home is the road where I’m just another face on a long crawl to somewhere.

            Like the stranger.

The stranger doesn’t need to know

            And he doesn’t ask why,

                                    For the stranger is kind as fresh bones.

 

I could go anywhere on this road.

            I could drag a traveler’s body into a concrete roost

And trade a whop dollar for lemongrass chicken,

            Steamed pilaf rice,

And hot chilies the color of a stripe on the Nazarene’s back.

 

Or I could slide a hotel pen behind a leather ear and act like I’m the stuff of cold script,

            The stuff of legend,

The compost of a New York City street dream;

Then, leave a trail of paper voices at every service station

Before kicking back on the last curb

(Roast grey like the inside of a dirty pipe)

To smoke out all the leftover worm-thoughts

And settle them on a yellowed page

            Half-Exposed,

 Bloodied,

Naked-

--May they catch a fever.

 

Or I could admit I’m a runner.

Admit I’ve been running..

Admit I’ve always run…

 

So what? I confess it! I’ve been dumping bodies since my youth!

 

--But what will the road say?

 

No more than the echo in every prayer

Or a shout in the street-

So let me be,

Let me just keep sweet talking my road into whoring out all that nowhere

it keeps in the  icebox!

                        Besides-

You know we do well together,

And we could stay strange together-

Like sundried lovers who never move on.  

 

Reviews

[.]

. "like sundried lovers who never move on" ... i absolutely don't agree with ... but i think that this is a most beautifully written and of course presented heartfelt complaint about the discomfiture of exquisite taste in everything ... in fact ... i just wrote about it ... but anyway ... this is some piece of work ... if i were you ... i'd be very proud of this one ...

[em]

- its always hard - i think - i know exactly what you're feeling - exactly who you are - exactly what you want - and exactly what you've lost - it is perhaps the curse of the extraordinariness - just reading your piece here was like walking shattered glass - one time - i was on stage (used to be a trainee indian classical dancer some lives back) - and a few glass bangles broke - and i stepped on the broken glass - smeared the stage in blood by the time i was done - that's the most pure memory i have of having left something of me back on stage - and to not have regained it ever again - joyfully so - that's the memory i stepped into -
- serah's right - you should be incredibly proud of this piece - this is the stuff of genius -