Seeking emptiness,
baffled by the challenge,
though it should be simple.
I struggle with poisons
left in my brain from
years of drinking
that stopped
years ago.
Not marred by intoxicants,
why so difficult to be empty?
There is an infinite zig-zag of lines.
My mind sticks with the fire station bell,
with sirens from ambulances
riding in rusty railroad cars
pulled by steam engines
straight through nuclear power plants.
What right have I to be empty
to be healthy, to be submissive,
to obey all of these commands
that are sending me into dried sand lots
next to haunted lakes by big worms
that ride on rats who march as if
they are storming the Trojan horse
and they are fully aware of their folly.
It’s the pipe organs
and all of the echoes.
These raunchy echoes buzzing.
Echoes off ragged walls
in broken concrete buildings.
Echoes, echoes, echoes,
and then the guy sucking gas,
remembering a lady
who sealed the kitchen
and plunged deep into the oven.
Then echoes of a broken
speaker with ripped skin
and braces torn off of teeth
with mold running in echoes
made of streams
of dangerous whiskey
splattering walls of deadly horror.
stillfugue 