Parts Unknown, a poem
every voice grates
piano keys are fingers
prodding down into my concentration
I don’t know what they
interrupt but it
makes me cross
tonight I call forward
fingers that will
explore and caress,
that will draw up my skin
with eyes close behind
tonight I wave goodbye to
prison bars
I am free, I sawed my
cell with a nail file
left behind
by my agent
failed hand model
(natural nails, no polish)
now I slather cherry red
all over, blood-like and long
So the fingers that next
intertwine
will know the color
of my heart beat
they will have no choice
I’m tired of being an ambiguous blob
I call forward sharp angles
steep curves
all-wheel drive terrain
I am not a golf course
my blood courses with nature
my river runs rapid
and rambling
where are we all going?
blinders on
and barreling
following some trail paved
with bone and
lit with
the glint in the conman’s eye
why do we feel fear outside
the glow of the electric lights?
like the moon can’t guide us?
like the sun won’t rise?
like the gps is our only map
I look inside and those deep
waters frighten me
the darkness is astonishing
who will I ever find down there
lose my mind in the mystery
and the imagined beasts who circle
but
the shallows have begun
to bore me
bobbing around, ignorant
of what lies below
waiting for a guide
who may never show
surely the abyss
can sometimes turn
to endless bliss
I’m
going
in
