War in the Distant Skies

“~Bearded Logic~ The honey shelf is aplomb with sticky enrichment. Don’t leave me—don’t waste me—don’t just let me watch, While white hot water twirls its god fingers round all my wasted thoughts, I swirl with its whirlpool palindrome as we together, Ever stronger, Attack the unknown. Deep breaths and esthetician’s fates, Doing different things in different places to ease bad-mouth-washed associations. Today is a day built for writing, Lo, I must tend to the hounds. We travel through time conjoined but doubly annoyed. We must remember that other machines are driven by other encephala, As Claude by Tchaikovsky, As Occam’s Razor by fuzzy-fuzzy logic, As the absence by the presence, And as time by peacefully unwilling unconsciousness. Sit down and study the patterns of human communication. Do not use your lack of things to attend to to expand the minutes. Count your breaths and mind your texts. Left *buzzer* right *buzzer* Stay in your lane, fake the river flow. Bestride the esplanade, Though we all know it’s a circus wheel. Steam that damn frozen Chicago topsoil. We want nothing more than predictable breathing patterns, Hematomas for our enemies, Peace, And a yellow room with white trim that does not elicit anxiety. A space where you can use whatever word you choose, Without fear of ridicule. It’s always accompanied by the most pleasant of aromas, And never creaks or hums in any way other than exactly how we want it to. But who joins us in this yellow-y room with white trim? As history would suggest, we have some choice mares, And as always, the hounds, But when will one choose us? Tea and honey, peppermint, and heartache, Actual ache, actual scolding. Be it the mother withholding that tears the teddy from the crib, Be it the old Bukowski-man who cradles and rocks, Spits up prose so poetic and lost, That he crawls around empty and solemn in slosh just to mock, The many simple triumphs of the many simple-minded millions who’ve flocked, With steady wings as he on cradle rocked, And was given such a gift in the amber and the grain, To die alone, But to be remembered by name.”