Empty Hours

Unsculptured hours of fish circles

and mad dog gleaming through

the shattered plaster day

Cracked white paint on splintered window sill

speckled dirt/damp muggy breath on turbid glass

Life/death/blood of the hunt/the ritualistic

Drunken dancing fish/unchipped block

fetid sink stench/a prenatal sculpture

poverty/commonplace

Peers of the age/I can’t relate/they merely

generate graphic expectoration

cause my hand to chisel

Teeth bite deep into the flat white surface

defiling/wet with bile/etching symbols

involuntary birth

I am/so different than

the rock n’ roll

fish swimming in humdrum rhythm

The smell/the mold on my soup/in the sink

the plaster tastes

so dry

I am/different/the fishes cannot really

help me/merely swim/drift dizzily

together/apart

BETTER TO STAY DRY – I scream and fold my arms

hold them across my chest

whilst     I

                  find me

                  sinking

                  amidst them

                  all

The fog settles upon us today

my bronchial

window sill dreams

chipping/crumbling

rehashing/recycled/nightmare

                                                                        when the sound stops

                                                                        the plaster is so

                                    silent

                                                                        the day, still and bleak