The Fools on Which We Travel

Il y a la bêtise dans notre sang

I am face down
    involuntary
    incapable
there is gravel sticking to my eyes
and dust settling in my lungs

This laughable road of attempted solace
      stretches over older and similarly pointless roads

These pebbles are made of bones
    plucked
    chopped
    rounded
    and scattered
across the forgotten footprints of those
      they once structured

My hand is flat against the stones that formed
      cheekbones
      knees
      and spines
    long before Babel
    electricity
    and AIDS

There will not be many of my footprints to conceal
      only a few weeks worth of walking
some make it years, others decades
          but we all dry out in time
      we all for various and
    ultimately redundant reasons
      stop walking

Whether we are on our
    sides
    bellies
    or backs
      curled
      or outstretched

In the end we are all
    broken
    nameless
    countless
A myriad of predictability
while we come to realize just how
      hostile and sticky the scattered skeletons
     we traveled on have been this entire time
And that we and our skeletons
     just like every other person passed
      have been
    stuck
    kept
    helpless
    foolish
    naïve
    and trapped
      from day one

Amongst the paths and ruins of those
we quite proudly decided to ignore and deem
      ridiculous

Mocking the obviously foolish routes they took
      while our feet were already moving
      along the same disguised path
      leading to the same disguised nowhere
      that once sent us into fits of smug giggling

I am wheezing and cold against these bones
      like a reluctant lover
And soon, against my ear, I hear the beat
      deep in the earth
The rhythm that thousands of ears have listened to
      over every century passed

Footsteps traveling proudly
      ignorantly strutting across their future condition
And I am thinking just what they themselves will wonder
    with twitching fingers
      the sun nipping the skin from their bodies
 baiting the moisture from their skulls
 pressed pathetically against the same damned road
    Their children and their children's children
      will waste away on

    We never learn, do we?

Reviews

[renea hanna.]

there are some beautiful phrasings in here! and the structure you used from stanza to stanza was visually interesting as "chaos" said. there were some instances where ideas seemed redundant, however, the piece as a whole is full of a very strong sentiment. as with other pieces of yours that i read, you consistently convey an emotion very strongly. good work.

[Tha Wind AKA VERBAL OX]

im feeling this on multiple levels simultaneously @ the same time
havent read anything in a while that grabbed me like this

Amazing write... as simply as i can say...your write is "Light"

one love...

[Walkingblind]

Good Lord what have u done! You've just made an instant fan of me I could
review each stanza five times. There's such revelation in this poem u take something
we all know will happen and that we do and capitolized it then staple it to our foreheads
in an attempt to show us just how everything will end. I love how u never said that life was
the road we traveled (though it may be what u wanted to express) the road could symbolize
anything such as the obvious: love, but also accomplishment, greed, ignorance and so on.
And the way you talked about rotting corpse in an elegant way was beautiful truly excellent!
You are a fantastic writer.

[PianoandPage]

i love the atmosphere of this piece. the image is consistant and despairing... a commentary on humanity that is like a whispered warning.... a realization too late.

how is it that we continuously keep putting the obvious truths to the side until they finally confront us at the end?

several lines really stood out for me. i loved the "sun nipping" bit. very cool word choice.

i also really liked, "A myriad of predictability" - which is tres cool. nice

[Chaos]

Wonderful!

I love the flow and utter disgust of where we once stood. I love the structuring of this piece. It kept my interest through the entire piece and I could feel your frustration between every line.

Great job!