Dystopian Filter

   Nothing confused

apocalypse signals

become a new real

 

   aground in headline

behind paywall

accelerate limits

of free content

 

   exhale and transact

 

   Outside façade

nothing transparent

scope paranoia

vision untrusted

 

   methadone clinic

pastels blinding

condone and construct

 

   dystopian filter

 

   Short-dated stills

shortening lifespan

through the untended

charted reminders

 

   lengthening days

leave their regrets

replaying your debts

 

   unease of dreams

MM 9/2020

Livery

 

Suspension

tail wagging

skies gray sort of pink

winds are etching

sun’s incision

days had passed

wrung elements

wrought surface

line defied

 

Retention

welted wrist

whipped into being

bled into spring

flowed internal

damnation speak

lifted confusion

lowered in burial

uncovered and damp

 

Recovery

eyes entwined

sightline delimited

vision is slighting

singling downward

shrouded in panel

indifferent reflex

motion borne

inanimate state

 

Decaying

expense defrayed

candy-coated closure

cold bottom feeding

muddy fangs

filth in numbers

etched into record

stench in the water

in circulation                               

 

MM 9.2020

Reduction

Public Domain

See them on screen, reduced

in senses, conjoined

grazing in grade

throughout all dreams

in frayed concentration

 

slivers of sound

spliced in at night

roses and garnet

piercing the edges

puncturing barriers

 

edging toward silence

speaking in hollow form

sleeping envisioned

in communique

 

They came with me, aligned

with scars in the sky

peddling the trope

remembrance in fragments

scattering the loss

 

seedlings rot down

implant decay

sewn into rations

inverted in frame

brandishing iron

 

in razed forgiveness

the stir of forgotten

scarring in morning

first waking light

 

MM 8.2020

Surveyor's Prayer

Young Diffraction - Thomas Young 1803 - Public Domain

Burrowing math toward a core

tunnels turn back toward their origins

seeking light from passing inward

illuminating fractured symmetry

 

Daylight is an arc toward this

context in service of time’s decay

the alignment of age pushing and pulling

of body leveraging weight

 

What we conceived lies waiting

in mocking continuums flash red lights

blinking in solemn arrangements

beyond all order within their patterns

 

The landscape surveys ground beneath them

drawing out this subterranean

assortments of colors and numbers

laying them down throwing away pieces

 

Without concern nor conviction

nor acknowledgement to leverage the whole

practicality washes away its grounding

debris amasses the wash downstream

 

MM 7.2020

Forgotten Coast

The last time you were able to walk freely, in December

your look was a validating gesture of fatherly duty

sentiments unsaid, floating in the aura between us

you gave me a fifty and told us to enjoy ourselves

toward the end of your life

we told you we loved you and we’d see you again

I learned to say these last two years

A call the year before, just a Friday at the store

checking voicemail in the aisle, wondering

through the dead ends reconciling lives in gray matter

clogging filters and in hanging space

that kept drifting across the continent

somewhere between numbness and anger

of unrealized endings in process

The visceral reaction is projection, a naked face staring

back in a dream repeating mantras, the navel gaze

pathetic attempts at comfort in return

finding fault in the hardened lines

suffocation in the space between them

in the end, I own the frame and the memories

say it out loud and choke them down

So hard to get there from here, Forgotten Coast

isn’t up on the board, no departure or return

the pull of gravity didn’t rest for time

it carved and caved in landslides

ridden out and through momentum shifts

charted out by points on a graph

that emerged from the distance, filled

In the present, arrivals to assist with care

like a tourist away from worldly concerns

just there to observe and reinforce the struggle

there before me and then after I’m gone

helping to move you, to spell her

placing my hands in spaces for leverage

speaking with words that were giving back what I’d been given

The last time I could muster only thanks and love

over the struggle and easing of breath

on the phone near the end of your life

in mourning drift cross-continent, the current

weathered back to the pulpit, the naming in your stead

remains in place of the journey, enclosing the circle

remarking departure for us all

MM :11.2019 : Carabelle, FL