Digger

 

Digger

© 2008 by Will Northerner

 

 

There are fields the Nephilim refused to abandon

Fields porous with digs I’ve clawed and picked away

Stratified displacements of grounding

Dug for anthropological inspection

For forensic decoding

 

One hole, always deepening,

Is the repository of my past

A finding place for forgotten relics...

A silver comb from more hirsute days

A club token with a dancing girl

Smudged backstage passes

And a desiccated burrito

The hole holds what’s past

 

In a manic fugue I dug a reservoir

(can’t remember a thing)

This is the repository of all the grog I’ve tanked

The pit filled to overflowing

Banks washed away and a torrent escaped

Sweeping away pastoral hamlets

Where new digs were planned

 

The wasteland of grog and deadly tinctures 

Stagnates in the hole of the past

 

The past hole grows as the hole for

Future possibilities diminishes

Compacting more as each tick tock

Moment slips away

 

A hole filled with powdery residue

Washed away in the grog flood

Only a pasty cement remains

Stewing like volcanic mud

 

No more eruptions

 

The paste makes way for the

Place of past residue

 

I dug a hole for moments of crisis

Mindful of the zen of solitary confinement

Dug a catacomb in the form fitting shape of

A forlorn mandrake hulk

Reminiscent of the skulking golem

That dogs my soul

 

The walls of this dig are

Tiled with geodes

 

Geodes for Christ’s sake...

 

I always thought that geodes looked like

Fossilized brains

Their bulbous surface creased 

With softening fissures

Stone cold and motionless

As my thoughts in moments of crisis

 

The manhole is mine alone

A dark place to repose round

My mortal emanation

A place to study life force

Depletion with dire concentration

A place to contemplate 

What waste may be salvageable 

Just as recyclable elements are found

In putrid land fills

 

Bits and pieces to create

Something new

 

The man shaped hole I reside in

 

Is permeated with the unbearable 

Stench of Decay to all but myself

I acclimated long ago

 

Only the dearest of

My brave friends attempt

To contact me in this state

 

They raise the iron grate up top

And let endearing and hopeful missives

Flutter down to me

Like origami doves

Muddied bird shapes sink

And drown in my purge

My banished effluvience

 

I am naked

My body greased as 

Black as my temporal soul

My only light is my Father’s

Tested Zippo to ignite carton

After carton of essential f**s

A perpetual insomnia distorts thoughts

In waking dreamscapes

Hallucinations that cavil and nettle me

like rabid furies

 

My hole is a smoke stack of nicotine

Geodes are slimed with tar

Black as night blood

 

The quavering flicker 

Of the lighter 

Prompts me to remove a rock

From the bilious wall

 

I smash it in two with another displaced stone...

 

Radiance shimmers forth in the glint

Of my diminutive torch

The core of the ugly nugget is gem encrusted

 

Leads me to ponder the radiance of my

Heart core myself...

 

Releases me from man trap redoubt

I climb from the sodden grave

 

I might have dug a hole all the

Way to the Forbidden City

 

But a shining flash

From a stony facade 

Illuminated something 

New in me

 

The hole of future potential

Shifted and ceased to dissolve

 

I wash the spew from my digger body

And breathe fresh air.

 

The golem dig is abandoned 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Rodwonder]

This is, by far, one of the best poems I have read on this site so far! The wording and picture dynamics it leaves is refreshing and enlightening... Dark and moody has a special place for me, I can't wait to read more of your work... Very Good!

[eddie]

your writing style is unigue and awesome..this is just amazing