Succession Song
The community is a judas eye. Preoccupied by the prospect of renters and beheaded orchids. No signs of forced entry. Just the dominance of mildew. The wavering pitch of gnats rotating through the broken shafts of light. They collapse on the ear like a wave among placards for the dead for whom we have no voice worth singing. But a prolix pulse at the sight of our unelected dance. The morose quaking of hands in a shivering lot where autumnal shadows bleed towards the crowd and a blazing sun adorns the flags. Collective breathing traced like ragstone in the air: follow its edges to the dogwood's burned out galaxy of buds. And all the way out to where one cares the most: by the stream. Where contours of a forgotten kiss signal a stabbing pain. Like a symptom of god. Or a forced inheritance. Nothing to counteract the moods brought on by late night nostalgia for dead flowers pinned to our shirts by anarchists who walked the earth once in red chuck taylors. Until the weeping of industrially processed farm animals was rain we could pass through on fire.
Pastoral II
Dew point at a lower altitude than usual. A truer perspective palpable in the early light: unanticipated assertion of fact that turns the wind off from the flags. Mutilated quartz sparkles in the eyes of convenience store clerks. Beside walk-in coolers of 12 packs and red bull cases. To see the wreckage and set a piece of it here. With the toddler's plastic toy infused with perimeter lights on the exposed oak tree roots and the strand of raven hair engrooved in the windshield. Can't cry the loved ones from their encasement. Though the figs remain as sweet as ever, the dust columned in patchworks of sun. Having applied for each occupation in the database and received endless nada in reply. Just rest. Type with one finger in memory of dolls the cats mauled in spasms of libidinal joy. By the bungalow where the trinkets pile high. And the straight set faces of the watchful are heeled into the earth. Into fields of discarded glass. Where. With a few minor adjustments. The warbler pushes its list of hollow needles through the air. An invisible arc that flowers painlessly. Out. Over the slate roofs shimmering. And the buzz cut hills the color of deer.