Today’s poem has just stepped out of the Wayback Machine from 2011, so please be gentle with it as the acclimation process concludes. There was some minimal editing, but it amounted mostly to line breaks and a couple strategic spaces.

everybody’s everybody
 
nobody wants to die 
to get to heaven
 
living in the past 
& planning for tomorrow
 
one foot here and another over there
 
one good swing and you’re on your back
 
everybody’s everybody
doesn’t know nothing but a thing
 
a thing is no thing 
and every thing
 
to everybody, 
everyone 
is an everybody. 

Here’s a little something for Word Wednesday that I wrote back in early February.

a time piece
 
the ticking
of my parent’s wall clock
is still with me:
 
as it used to echo
through a darkened house,
vibrating through wood floors
& joists, it echoes through
years & miles covered -
 
still present with its
steady Tick
(the sound of Death’s tapping foot)
& its maddening sibling Tock
(the mocking jester
with sociopath’s grin),
 
it’s all there waiting
whenever i close
my eyes. 

I’ve always been fascinated with cities. To me, they’re as magical in their manic noise and movement as the country is in its quiet and emptiness.

 weeknight in the city
 
 dirty town with wave after wave
 of windows, cascading over each other,
 walls of concrete & stone
 stained with evening sweat -
 
 hungry doorways wait for visitors,
 ready to devour & deliver them within,
 
 a steady throb of traffic
 flowing like blood: red & white 
 tail light blood cells
 in two neat rows - a pulse
 never ceasing, palpitations
 of sirens and shouts.
 
 drawing curtains, keeping ourselves
 to ourselves: millions of hermits
 sectioned off in our own compounds,
 waiting for daylight.