Thought Crimes
Beyond the rate of data
the inconceivably small or distant
(atoms, black holes, HTML code, quarks)
beneath the god-function of naming
the saffron tinted cactus flowers
lift themselves up into July’s heat
Unspeaking testament
to another eloquence
curating this barnacle brain
with your fierce chisel
Authority wants to replace the world
with itself.
Ventriloquist
resist clamping the words in my head
to the page to shut them up
I have lines inside me
like a string of guiding lights
guilty of thought crimes
Certainty's the booby prize
baffled and mute
beside the vast vernacular of nature
While waves stroke plastic beaches
names and processes I don’t know
swim past my baited fishing pole.
I know how words work
like boys know how machines work
Unhooked from the digital drumbeat
and surroundings once removed
yet
always we're walking on words
— the floor the walls the doors, words —
We got souls to save, worlds to conquer
words to slide against each other
burning with too-big brains
but the world burns faster.
To be a slingshot instead of a lockbox
to cleanse the gateways
& let the world pass
To not know what time it is every day
to not know what day it is all the time
To not. To knot.
To spin the knots to parachute
To knot the string
and call it Shakespeare
— call it God
The thing you touch with your fingers
direct communion, like Braille
participate
like worms, waves, wolves.
To slide the awful story from my shoulders
discover the cool peace of rootlets
calm dissolve of this land
drenched in life-giving rains
offering
everything
Just to watch the spider walk on air
silver intellect on a crystal page
To be a spider, born with all I need to know
and a short condensed journey of purpose
To be a molecule of water roaring home
just one tiny piece of that unity
only clean-cut sand, stone's future
or that image of the earth seen from space
You are here.
Wagging this long ineffable tail
full of screeching peacock pronouncements
failures of grammar
babble of beauty
Touching a world that's
the roaring heart of a great bonfire
blaze drives me back but
i resist retreat to human.
These pockets full of heart shaped rocks
proof that the land loves me back
and questions, unconquered
coming through
like a thrillion beeping messages
a stammer of imperfect speech
Seasons redeem me while
Kali surrounds me
with the ten thousand things
I dissolve in Her mouth
torrential silence
unspoken
as light.
The only word to the butterfly, nectar
The only truth to the river, down.
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