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I had been walking for hours and hadn't gotten there yet. Eugene
was worried that the growls and blips and rumbles around us
would preoccupy us so far into the night we would never get there,
instead we would simply keep on walking. If only we were hungry
it would simplify all of it and there'd be no chance of missing our appointment
in the town square, witnesses we would be to the hanging,
lest we lose our moral code. Speaking of codes as night slammed down
it wrapped us in warbling shivers and not the moral ones,
the ones of alone, of dark, of the walking we now were unaware of.
Well, what of it? Most go through their codes tightly wrapped
and never work up the gumption to even hear those blips. And what
of Tess, that sylvan vision waiting, barely moving, stomach silent?
What of the past most taken, central heat and air, La-Z-Boys
and the princess, ovens not only hot, but full to bursting,
smoke detectors detecting, mittens, slippers, I give you my all
in the neon and the appointments, the wandering executions,
Tess and Eugene with their dark wavy hair over there
watching, slowboating emotions so vibrant and a ho and a hum
and a fee fie foe fum bull when the neck snaps in the code
code night, some former one shits his pants and we kiss
as the smoke wisps away. Dinnertime, been walking, almost jogging
for what seems like years. Feed Eugene first, then Tess,
then let me slip the spoon in your mouth, and let's leave
the oven on. Could it be the moral code we feel, the wind
from the racing obscurity that began as a walk towards death,
names of bodies we know not, night knows no light. When he was a boy
my father watched them hang a thief, or a criminal of some sort,
the former body now in the town square. Even though he forgot names
he would have fed Tess first, then Eugene, or Eugene then Tess.
The snap now silent, cold code blips into the night of full-bellied wandering,
least-resistant, road-forked, dear we're alone now, I can't stand
that I want to love everyone everywhere and can't because
this town of intentions wanders so, and is so square.
it's okay
having three green legs and
having to crawl.
that guy over there
has it worser.
kneel on the side of the bed
and i'll enter you.
i close my eyes to see the cave
grey cotton cloud
why does it hang between us
when my ears are open?
i read he got 75 years
and she goodbye to them.
now i have four legs
red red red
doggy style, Augustine
in my early period
chantnfuckchantnfuck
kiss me
i'm way over
here
your thought quickly disappears before
you knew you had it before you could
question what it was before it became apparent
that all thoughts hold together the primary thought
unquestioning, brutal, undemanding
and so your fleeting thought in itself was useless
though spectral and the thrill of this held you
as your thought became unremembered
younger i imagined a later life
alone, a small apartment maybe dark
(as it is now) or light by high tenement windows
with flaked brown wood casings
opening over the el, always a train
and a train and a train and their sound
becomes the sea sometimes it would tickle me
into sleep maybe a cockroach or two
books half-read old stubs snapshots and files
obsessions are limited engagements at some point
years ago i began taking the ride and i would
slowly brake and arrive and even though my life
remembered by a survivor or two might make these few
wistful once in a while, let them have their few beautiful tears
it will dissolve like a thought
through the casement into the train's clatter
John Eivaz (john e) was born in New York and lives in California where he works at a winery. He has a chapbook, Remainder of Thursday Afternoon, available at Lulu.