Warring With Waves

I’m at war with sound waves

It doesn’t seem to matter that I have waved the white flag

they have waived it

intent on punishment— punishment for what?

War crimes, I suppose

There is no reason in the world

only allusion

I seek reason in spite, my mind

relentlessly searching, quietly roaring,

crashing out of control— 

I try to quiet the absent noise; I don’t want to be a hypocrite

There are downfalls to warring with sound

waves

have tactical genius

It doesn’t seem to matter that I know their tricks

They fool me every time

and I am caught— off guard, off foot, off sanity

Sound is a tool for sanity

If you are in sanity, then you are in sound

there is no way around it

Believe me, I would know

Waves are persistent for the most part; if you start to doubt

don’t worry, they’ll remind you

They like to tease

yes, indeed they do

so much so

that when you think

they may finally

come

to rest…

They laugh, screeching in delight, as they once more shake your world, permeating every

barrier, blockade, defense

you are defenseless because you have no power over them, and

they have every power over you

Be reasonable, meek, angry, vicious, pleading, defeated, determined, persistent

Still, the waves of sound will outdo you at every turn

relentless, they show no mercy

This is a war that will never stop until you are undone

Shame on you for thinking

you could win

for thinking there was a better to be had and war was the answer

Contentment, I advise contentment

Do not war with waves.

Waxy Balm

I.

They came, they left

Came back and left again

They went to throw boulders

and fire from the sea

To swirl cotton candy from clouds

and melt chocolate from the ground

To weave blankets out of thistles

and mold lightning into keys

To make new oceans and land

out of molten lava rock

To make for themselves 

their own earth

But I laugh

for that 

is no Earth

that I know

II.

“It was lobster and witchcraft!”

they cry in their torment

The stars that dust the trees—

while clandestine fate

breaks the shattering glass—

find new homes in blackness

III.

I am coating the quote 

in a waxy balm

of velvet and vanilla extract

so no vigor nor grace—

even that of a queen—

can breach the secrets kept here

The seal comes to crisp

and I must relinquish

what art I crafted in crib

So with linger and prick

turn heel on the isle

circumvent the slippery tongue

Embrace the only reprieve:

to trace back to the circus

what malevolent origins

brought them from such foul name

Lest a triumph half-wasted be measured

by tears of grain cried by a bird

and the butcher wipe clean the slate—too late!

IV.

Now we go home for the night

and forget with haste what we have seen

That Room

Our mothers braided our hair, but we were the ones who tied our knots together

Knitting oil with water, we watched ourselves coalesce, and in that room, diverge

I find myself grasping at stolen space; standing by as invaders overtake the wasteland

I have made my home (I say invaders, but she let them in)

Alone, my fingers trace the now familiar channels that lie between the concrete blocks

Of the blank, white walls that confine me in blackness

In that room, I exist in the shroud of inner being

and revel in decay of the ethereal mind