UNPRESERVED

the latter is brand new
by virtue of the roundabout way
a place may be reached and
I'm still not sure about the former.

I'm talking about doubt and precision.

following movement and change
weariness visits then fades
all at once on a morning
year after year.

off-tilt stories packed poorly—
cases ajar, moist inside—
growing accidental things
gathering dust.

panic-suffused vignettes
draw charge from fear of death
and uncovering. stuffed under
comforter pockets, the abode
of some preservative, again,
I'm not sure.

one way to denature
is everyone active forgets
what you're used for
or how you're repaired
until you look like the answer
to a question nobody asks.

or we might not care
what's in the jar
or what it started as
if we already know
we're not going to eat it.
you, that is.

__

UNEXPLODED ORDINANCE

how many refrains inhere
within the slow cascade
of cicadas' tumbleweed song?
scrawled along a dusty wall
by the guided palm of a musical savant
where rest the colon and the pipes :||?

memory irons pops and clicks
from the shoegaze filo— 
but have you cornered one
and heard it scream?
a too close airhorn spikes
the heart rate clubs peaceful fog—
cool drinks spill.
this is ok flips dizzyingly
to plate shatter slaughter pitch—
treed on a tinfoil edge,
you must climb back down.

the less berserk reconsider
when doubt spreads regarding
which additional unimagined
unimaginable escalations await.
where else lurk land mines?
which palm fronds are tiger trap?
now the avenue's too tender
too taxing to tread upon.

ask instead where to find frail things
that don't mind being preyed upon
that freeze into warm little snacks.

stay long enough in one place
and everything screams—
cows after calving
rodents tearing tufts from one another
tree trunks rending—
even the damp sedimentary sod
rides casually atop a ring of fire.

__

after "UNPRESERVED" maybe everyone gets to learn how much isolation is unhealthy for them, how it starts to chip away at their particular judgments. it turns out the rural permaculture dream—that elemental, nature-drenched edge-dwelling—involves staggering amounts of decay, which at certain saturation points crosses into the personal, through dreams, through checklists, through sheer force of will. I'm driven to capture the self-doubt and second guessing, the overwhelm and resignation that comes from biting off more than you can chew.

after "UNEXPLODED ORDINANCE" if your nervous system is sensitive, if you are hyper vigilant, a cicada might as well sink magical fangs into your earlobe. some creatures seem to have a single boundary, wafer-thin, that separates a soporific normalcy from a razored-up rooster fight. or enough bad surprises create predispositions for catastrophizing. predators are normal, too. and it's intriguing when stronger creatures are successfully repelled by the well-calibrated resistance of weaker things or when poorly-calibrated resistance scrambles everyday life, even just for a moment.