For A Better Propaganda

I.

once time was a weight – straining

a conduit

II.

one can hear clearly

words crawling across the water,

almost a year old

inching towards death

III.

you were alone,

peering across the chesapeake,

how many times can you live the same life over again pushing through sleep grasping at the edges the familiar patterns,

bread and broken bodies, budgets and the economics of faith

withered, flung from the vine again

--

all teeth chattering, elevator music

--

Spent beneath waves

soft edges undulating

waxing and waning

We hold fast to our rituals and die every winter, as soon as the hands rest on home

I miss the cackling fire, that hot air escaping blistered lips.

make something permanent spill out of those slender hands

I fear the tides and dreams

cascading water, fell from my open skull. water the sacred earth.

scattered between diesel machines, wonder where they’ll leave our

abandoned

left scratching at edges of a splintered night

I never keep a bed

--

it’s amazing how many oddly shaped things can fit in a box

I find myself in naked rooms once, when they’re born and once more when I abandon them

--

my father speaks to me in sentimental tones,

stumbling through the dawn,

drunken orange lines

It's all a part of the vulgar birth

Step naked into the cold water and breathe, sharp air

Lost and stuck to wet hands, everything’s a mystery

–

Adrift and splintered

mahogany skin cracking beneath the sun