Blood’s fever raids my mind,
chains my will; and raging
unrestrained, my body
grasps control of yours and
yields us to the wilding
whirlwind rushing our skin.
Satisfied with vengeance,
panting through your knickers,
cresting waves of this, my
sodden doubt, you whisper,
a little death won’t hurt.
Then, as strangers twist in
all their beds and alleys,
desperate, like us, trading
epithelium, to hear
something strong from such flat,
callous orchestras, their
aching tongues would whet, speak,
welcome in the reaper
just to risk the thought they
might have souls to lose, cry,
a little death won’t hurt.
Elsewhere close, their numbers
swell in masses formless,
sieging hometown walls and
fences built to curb the
darkling chaos, now deemed
threats to declarations.
Goblins in their minds, they
crush joints, tear local sinews,
even their own, and scream
through glass shards and night fires,
a little death won’t hurt.
These and more the scapegoat
bears on shoulders twisted
down — the weight of fury —
holding lines to end them,
taming lions in voiceless
wounds. He leaves the city,
hearing after him their jeers,
drinks in the world’s pain,
hoping he’ll clasp one more
reaching hand, and thinks,
a little death won’t hurt.
Voices Overheard at The Bird and Baby
The Ordinance:
Another drink, barman, for my dull friend
Who seems to think the world may hold a key.
So let me get this straight: you’d still maintain,
Despite all we’ve learned of physics, that man
Possesses his own mind, perceives his truth
Fixed somewhere on the precipice of being?
The Architect:
Doesn’t the iron still fall, regardless where
You stand — or fly? And still the clock turns round,
No matter how lethargic? No, the stars,
While shifting in their places, haven’t changed;
Your physics holds our universe intact.
What’s changed is this: the colors of the glass
Through which we view the sky.
The Ordinance:
You’re blind to think
Tradition saves or brings you hope beyond
Oblivion. You can’t go backwards and
Repair the ruin. After all your kind
That came before you fall to time, and all
Their monuments submit to entropy,
I enter in to sweep away the past
So that new architects can build their claims
And legacies. I push the atoms out
Past time, making space —
The Architect:
For nothing. No
Space but what you twist, warping matter till
Your eyes see only moving cars with no
Fixed points, unable to be still yourself.
So other minds must fill the void and shape
A place to find your meaning, order thought,
And live life measured by reality.
The Ordinance:
Reality? And meaning? Words — mere breaths —
A fleeting drop that falls into the gap,
Is lost, and then forgotten.
The Architect:
How can you
Think these hold no meaning? — Don’t interrupt,
Put purpose in my mouth and prove my point
Involuntarily. Words are the stufts
That fill our souls, a manna made of light.
What’s one experience that’s not expressed
In language? So, what joy, what food, what sex
If we can’t speak of it? Each written word
Once spoken shapes a body, builds its bones,
Articulates the muscles, finishes
The masterpiece with flesh. A word is birthed
In beauty and possesses everything
Within itself, then caught in others’ laps
Transforms to constellations, minute
As a rose or the wag of a dog’s tail.
The Ordinance:
I laugh to hear you blabber, man, but mere
Idealism cannot show a world
Unmasked except what’s in your mind.
The Architect:
You still
Misunderstand: each realist has his own
Imagination too, believes the truth
Is built on fact, then picks which facts, and all
His theories make a frame to choose more facts.
Each day at work, each site is made of words
And numbers. Stones and steel exist in form
And then develop substance in our mind.
The Ordinance:
But then what framework’s true? You cannot say,
And no geometry or perfect spheres
Emerge from chaos to inscribe a draft.
The Architect:
One sum scratched on the page, one symbol cast
By letters, one half-note of music played
By a child might still represent the truth.
Whatever form holds the cosmos and reads
What’s underneath: what is one, and what then
Is unity? And if the sum is wrong,
The notes played flat, then such a center
Will not hold.
So, yes, friend, if nothing’s all
You think remains, then nothing’s left to know.
