No Gods, No Monsters

The subtle heart betrays its flutter

Like a lying child.

Our separate pains relayed

Through mirrors of circumstance

So that often

We only see the opposite

Of what the other feels.

We cry together sometimes

Without any real pity,

Like wolves to the moon.

My heart and I believe

In another place, further off,

Where we can rest from this.

The wretched mind betrays

It’s pathos with intoxicants.

It relaxes every muscle

until it spasms and withers.

A blemish on the videoscreen.

So pure, the will to blindness.

So I, the skeleton,

My calloused heart,

My reverent mind,

Will sing the dying soul

To sleep.

As the cancer whispers

Sweetly to the mind,

“I love you. Never leave me.

Never leave. I love you, so.”

And the mind replies

With its unknowing silence.

And the heart, deprived of oxygen

Releases every sacred wish,

Bargaining for one more breath

Before the mind retreats

And grows roots into my skull

And through my veins

Into the subtle heart

That, instead of beating,

Waits.

You’ve been standing at that mirror

For going on five minutes now.

Trying to find a set of features

Calculated for a certain recognition.

Bleak and morbid, maybe someone else’s,

But there is just one body standing there.

Something is lost behind those eyes.

some old spark has left a dead glisten

And a heavy brow that falls away like rain

From the narrow bridge of a hooknose

Above two thin, white, sneering lips.

This is not you. This is not your face.

How could those measured lines have

Come apart so quickly, leaving this

Sick and slackened apparatus?

The dark heart threatens, the lungs

Restrict and buckle from the fear.

But do not panic. See if you can relax.

If you have any downers, take them.

Remember to control you breathing.

Try to think of what you looked like

At a time when you were feeling

like yourself. Before headaches.

Before sex. Before regret or reason. 

Dishonesty or death. Before smoking.

When the promise of perfection beckoned.

Think back to a time when you were happy,

Or if you can’t, a time when you were safe.

Sit down somewhere. Close your eyes.

Cry if you need to. We will do the rest.

And know:

With every ghostly, half-forgotten day,

In every cherished, silent, holy night,

From every poisoned mouth that uttered

Each true love upon your spirit,

There was always, in everything,

The risk of some abrasion. You knew this.

So if the place you are seems unfamiliar,

Or if you are afraid and don’t know why,

Keep in mind the possibility that

From the imprint of an imperfect

And ever-changing flesh,

The memories themselves are lying.

And for this the universe apologizes.

Like a game of solitaire in the evening

After the working day is over

The light leaves easy when ignored

As the sunset on the martini glass

Creates a gradient on your hand

Like a chalkboard

When the heavy soul is sunken

Like an anchor to childhood

The horizon can be seen

Spreading like a curtain

These doors might as well be walls

For all the good they do when open

For every place that they may lead to

There is a stronger soul now gone

There are no parties here anymore

No parting glances or handshakes

Just the hum of radiators

Rocking the tenement to sleep

There are no walls beyond these buildings

Only concrete in the granite bedrock  

And chain link fences and pavement

rubber seals and galvanized steel hearts

Pumping endless streams of consciousness

into the stop signs at the crosswalk

Everyone is everyone, they tell you

Just another copy cast from plaster

That swells in water and tans in sunlight

chipped by time and weathered by wind

So you take six dollars out of your wallet

To pay for a space with the morning commuters

You sit at your table and watch

The scrolling text below the anchorman

They found about a thousand bodies

the skeletons of communist soldiers

dug up by farmers in a rice field

All burned, all buried, In Hanoi

Some days it seems that the world spins without us

That our friends forsake us and think us lost

And we hang our heads and wonder whether the spinning

Will leave us all alone, drifting with our thoughts

But everyone sleeps at nine-hundred miles an hour

Nothing short of the sun can break you out of orbit now

And anyway, your eyes look better when they’re open

The coffee is on, breakfast is ready. Everybody is waiting

For you to wake up and come downstairs.

You’re in the bathroom

There is a party downstairs

But you are in the bathroom

You’re alone

You stand at the toilet

Because that is why you’re in here

But afterwards you stay

In here, there is no one

Touching your back

Asking you to move

Asking for your number

Telling you about how hard it is

To work in retail, to get up

In the morning

And go to bed

At night

There is just

The soft bump of hip-hop

The background noise of voices

You finish up, go to the sink

You wash your hands

With the luxury basil hand soap

You’re a fan of good hand soap

There’s a message on the mirror

It’s written in lipstick

It says “don’t forget to smile today”

It makes you sad

That someone would write that

On their own bathroom mirror

As a reminder

You’re staring at your reflection now

There is no shame in this

You think you see what they see

An image of yourself

Without vanity or love

Without sadness

Just the face

Of someone you don’t know

You rifle through the drawers

You find the lipstick

You write “don’t forget - 7:30, Tuesday”

That ought to keep them guessing

Or at least intrigued for a bit

It might even make them smile

That makes you smile

You’re standing there

At someone else’s sink

Smiling

You look into the mirror

You nearly make a jump for it

But you know that behind the mirror

Is just a wall

And behind the wall

More people

Talking about their jobs

Talking about themselves

Making love and having children

And remembering to smile

Maybe they’ll remember to meet you too

At 7:30, on Tuesday

Even earlier the walls had vanished

The mouth of time was closing in

And not a single action perpetrated

Slave to consequence no longer

Dead to others, born again

And dead once more to close

This one short chapter, clothed again

Release of knowledge into safety

Airmail, care of those to come again

And run again, and faster yet

Than my neglected legs once did

The eight o’clock appointment suffered complications

The Ten-Thirty never showed, having taken it upon herself

She almost died of blood-loss, flat-lined in the shower

Fell asleep too early somewhere not long enough ago

The twelve-or-so picketers are restless and defensive

There’s still the question of the signs they brandish

And guesses as to where those pictures came from

This never escapes a set of lips, but speculation

Like the chill over these icy plains of Kansas

Betrays our tendency toward empathically

Delaying our decisions, and we’re paying for it

In the wide and wild eyes and heavy hearts all beating

With their self-inflicted riddlin prescriptions

Despite everything, convinced beneath the surface

That they are all that is really there

I solve problems, I tie knots and I gamble

With cold and steady hands I use instruments

To Grapple with the gravity of fabricating

Tragedies for the memories of ghosts

But I am not the master of these little fates

It isn’t fair to burn for what I shouldn’t know to do

Everything is made from ashes

Futures grow like trees and die

No matter where the seed is scattered

The same is true in all our hearts:

That whether rolling like a storm,

Or soft and sudden like a sunrise

The fearful flesh obscures a mind

That labors only to be loved

Deciduous and innocent

It begs for a continuum

And that during all it’s silent toil

There may only wrestle one

The streetlight through my open window,

Broken by tree limbs and the swaying blinds,

Illuminates  decaying, rusted bars

Over the clock on the opposing wall

I’ve sweat all through my cotton sheets

The spreading-out and flowing-over of my limbs

Caught up against the posts that bind me to my bed

Stretched like wet paper beneath the white revolving fan

The gentle hum of cars and leaves and drunken voices

The gentle surge of heat and wind and vague nausea

Everything is slowed to one-forth-time

Everything is cast in half-light

The wait from here on out is long

And the weight of conscious thought

Burdened by darkness, relieved by silence

Is drawn out into the vacuum of the room

My head begins to spin and throb

The weariness returns, and all around me

Oxygen turns to carbon and back

And gravity releases it’s hold

I sink down into my damp sheets

I dig my hands into the sand

The spark behind my eyes ignites

And for an instant even I am not