I
I raised my mosquito trough,
8 ft. high and 13 ft. across,
Prevention the element of shame
I approached. I have been
Eaten alive
For seems like months without end.
My immunities broke down, pine straw
Marsh, firethorn too rampant
And mites everywhere, the netherlands tormented
Beyond fire or the sloe of ice.
Why shame?
What sense of cedar shaved
Will displace this gnawing indecency
As I touch myself
Because the question begs
the question:
What self are we touching?
How I battled cosmogony
As the pine-tree roots fought
To undercut the glen I raised
Under the dale; the parasite flume
Dug shallower than dignity
Allowed but the groove
Beat a channel straight to my hands
And back.
And thighs.
Unfair to question the godhead
About intentions versus consequence
And so this tragedy of wellness
Unabated floats continuedly
Human but our source
Still concretes on the high weed,
The low brow of the hedge,
That errant offshoot meant
To be clipped before it over-
Ran the eave and now,
This swelter of swale and slope
Is my memory releasing atmospheric
Iodine to another’s lightning.
Is this what I wanted? Or quit
Questioning?
Trapped in my own gully of maintenance
And expectation management analysis,
I unbury the pellets of detriment
(guilt, loss, verb, noun, subject, pride)
And wait for the moment the mortar
Tumbles out of the brick, leaving a
Wall the smallest parasite can find
Its way though. And crumble.
II
What self’s horn am I blowing?
I count the value of each word spent –
one millimeter, two millimeter –
Three…and know the futility
Of banishing nature. Not all of it,
But the parts that feed on me:
The bite, the heart, love,
This warp and woof of the minutiae
That passes for - embraces, becomes -
Understanding when not guilt,
compassion, loss.
III
What trumpet sounds in the distance that does not beckon echo?
On one of my flights I designed a mirror that reflected image
And sound, a syzygy of held comfort where I could fall into myself
And talk myself back from the feed at the bottomless schism
That reflection is already becomes.
As though talk weren’t cheap,
As though syllable isn’t brittle when it succumbs,
As though camphor won’t salve the tender predicate,
As though descent wouldn’t mean more when I hit,
As though,
As if.
Like.
IV
I spunked a plumage, igniting
A veritable descrier of song.
Mouthpiece gone, and bell bent,
Valves and spit muddied beyond
Repair. Eaves drop
From the anticipatory weight
Of the limb’s decline; immunities
Braced to a zinc trellis, and fire-
Thorn momentarily dormant
With the early fall chill, I clash
In my preventative efforts,
Considering stone to filter water
That feeds the ground
That provides the stench
That produces the eggs
That become the mosquitoes
That are stopped by a trough
Of cedar and confession
Before they eat me.
Before another word
Said means nothing
Amongst the slope of my long
Pause with memory, poem
Rewrote at horn’s last hope.
© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas – All rights reserved
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