B. Gleed

One 

I am inconsequential,

a little thing.

A mite, a flea, a nit, a moment gone

and gone again, yesterday, in an hour.

I am here and mean nothing,

nothing.

You reinforce this for me.


    '

I am pretense, and you are pretense.

A lying man, the retch professore of my morality

instructs from great books written yesterday,

looks sideways at himself in hall mirrors,

can't remember how it feels to be real.

I'm seen rounding the corner many times a day

but it's a pretense,

like I need to know what's out there

but there's nothing, nothing. It's all based on nothing.

It's like the very concept, every attitude,

all a fake.


    '   

You are nothing different, nothing new

nothing that lasts, nothing.

Again and again and again

I see it

in your eyes, in your hair, between your thighs

the way you kill me bit by bit

the way I kill you every day when I get up in the morning.

Everybody drowns in the pond

and the ripples

roll toward all shores.


    '   

I have fear, dread, stasis,

a cudgle, a sword, a hammer.

Like my head is ripped off my shoulders

like a dead body in a car crash, all glass and broken chrome

like I want to sleep all day and drink

until I'm sick and dirty.

I want to drink until I'm full and have to pee.

That's reality.



Freedom         

I name it certainty

because I can grab on to it

can get a handle-


I go walking on the prairie seeking everything

while airplanes

bound for elsewhere

go be-bop do-wop

across the sky-


I seek elevations

on going-to-the-sun mountain-


I seek visions

where I can orbit the earth in the old way,

like mercury-


I name it light-

I name it as I choose,

as big as I like or as small-

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