orion.

poetry, critiques would be appreciated and reciprocated.

wake

with nothing said of dignity;
there is bravado in a lad of ten
trembling before the open casket:

those smile-wrought wrinkles
condensed round the corners of
the mouth and at the junction
of eyes and brow
now succumbed to the creeping blue
of death like the first freeze of a
shallow pond- slow at first,
then all at once. it comes upon me;

the spin of the world like cheap wine
turns men to lush and heroes to
ghosts; an urgency, it sweeps over me-

the light streaming through high windows
illuminates those blank eyes
and casts a shroud over the pews;

the music coerced from the guttural
bellows of the organ frenzies and
crescendos in bacchanal fury,

while the silence of the pew peals
solitary in the caverns of my chest;

and the nothing, that stagnant loneliness
that envelops my torso and squeezes
in upon my ribs until i cough, i spit,
i foam at the mouth and i
asphyxiate upon the choking dust

and the nothing; that
pall sprawled still and pale as
fresh-laid snow in the open casket
behind those marble eyes that
meet apollo’s gaze; that
stare to infinity,

and i am him and he is me; we and i and us-
blink and suddenly he is staring down at
me and he is crying and i am still

and i am in the coffin and i am crying
and he is crying and i am in the coffin
but how could i be he when he is
how could i be he or death or dead
or died i won’t die i-i won’t die
how could i be he when he- dead
i won’t no i won’t die i won’t

i will.

a great weight shifted then
from my heart to my head and traced
through every vein as deep as those
continental passages; a loneliness
crept upon me unique to them
tall cathedrals- an abrupt
and total emptiness as brave
and broad as i was not- life.