Big Speak (day 2663)

Apathy ranked high
In a list of long morals
That ruled the Big Speak’s ritualistic world
Visions confused as actions
Daylight confused as laughter
Dogs barking at parked cars
That swam away in a sea of surfboards.
The mothers cried
But held their tongue
For their culture had been shifted
Into bravery, brutish endurance
Ending in self-righteousness
So tightened by affirmations
Conflicting with daylight savings
While observing from a park bench.
But don’t tell lonely
For the Big Speak’s confused
That rhetoric means engagement
And slaughter means community.

Sudoriferous (day 2584)

I wasn’t sudoriferous
But then I found you
Golden moment of bliss
Sun streaks in ghastly clouds
Summer foliage in bloom
Like sweatened tea, my memory,
To a field with a cliff
And a fence and a bench
And a water tap found late in the night
Since the day I found you,
Turning me sudoriferous.

Faded (day 2572)

I wandered into a great mission bell
Symptoms I had thought undone
Dried landscape, cactus, tumbling sage brush
Full brim upon my ringing head.
Without a shining pistol to my name
No weapon had come to arm;
With my wiles I winked upon
A sweet lady resting there
Upon a wooden, well worn bench
Nestled shallow within the shade
Of two dried lips steadying the sun
And two tear drops settling in,
For in a moments recollect
In a conversation with a ghost
The history of each footprint
Came rustling quickly back
Like the wind out on a saddle
Rustling each tear, dusty
The moment had passed,
The dog returned to rest,
And ringing faded away.

Bare Hands (day 998)

When my sun rises over East
I sit at my bench and wait
And whisper to my gods in prayer
To bring me all their rain
So that I can find the strength
To hold my head high again
And if my bare hands I shake
That worked the earth for seven long days
Should hold in them a crying shame
Then it shall be for me, forever rain
To wipe away these falling tears
Before my sun sets again
From my bench I sit and wait

Orwell (day 356)

Today I do roam where Orwell has roamed
I sit upon a bench he did use
Perhaps with a breath
And a length of my hair
I shall hope to hear what he says
For then, in the end
With the hopes of my wind
I could find myself content
In his shoes
But had I not found
The peace he once did feel
Then I too would fall in a heap
So pretend for a while
As I am at this hour
That I sit in a place
He once sat