Mashing, contorting and twisting the face,
Soundgarden’s Jesus Christ Pose goes large.
Feel it; know it. Not furious, but hurting deeply.
Speck of evil in the pose, green fog and black tires,
mist of carved wood, hunting bones of weaklings.
Eyes dart but good guys know who you are.
Why can’t I get this?
Patterns of oozing shale seeps out of pores.
Posers glance at temporary cups, are ashamed.
Sludge and slime of charcoal grip and slink
from a brain that was destroyed long ago.
Hoping to be okay at the new bottom.
Posers cannot castigate me to a worse place.
Breathe deeply to stop
death that feels so warm and kind.
Shingles fly, slap. Curbs smash my skull.
Buildings park on my spindly ribs.
Trucks with giant tires pounce on top of my forehead,
mud dripping through my eyes, stabbing a gray brain.
Here again with rusty oak trees
with sturdy horizontal limbs,
and large balls of fur that crush houses.
Intimidating blankets of clay-red brick
crawl higher than I can imagine.
Cages lift me, hold me, stop me, cram me
into my dirty closet with happy mice stoically lost.
Cages reach and grab for the gravelly clouds
and lay me down with a large wind on the leaves
of a deserted tennis court with faded lines
and no net and half of her fence standing tormented,
ripped from the moorings of real civilization.
A white, bumbling, authoritative bench laughs heartily at me,
delivering a comforting feel of permanent death,
not merely to the spiritual capsule dancing in the cage,
but also to the thing that holds the spirit,
the thing turning to dust.
stillfugue 