This was a piece performed live in Tacoma at UW for a slam poetry competition.
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At the ends of time
the wind rushes through my skin and hair, piercing
my ear drums like spears in cantaloupes, and I bleed
out from them, screaming for the surface.
time knows no end and has no feelings, pushing on
ruthlessly like the ocean tides and the sunrise, a new
day a new clock a new spot on your insignificant
calendar pinned to the kitchen wall with a fancy purple tack.
where are we going
what are we doing
what are we achieving other than a microscopic
square, a spot, a dot, a speck on your daily planners
stuffed with your appointments and pouring out, leaking
through the seams to the floor of your car.
ring, ring.
you fly toward your cellular phone, you jump to it like
your life is on the line if you miss.
hello, here's a time block, another 1:30 to attend
for the rest of your life, another lifeless hopeless
worthless attempt at making a difference in a
world full of lifeless, hopeless people.
there's more to it than that.
lifeless
not lifeless
I shine, I reach, I yearn for the things that
make you mean more than your pocket
pc's and mp3's and computer screens.
beauty in the world is waiting for you to
take off your masks, your disgusting, rotting,
moldy blindfolds, your boxes of stupidity, and
just throw them aside like you did once with
your huge handful of hidden dreams.
throw them aside.
open your eyes because there is more to see,
open your mouths because there is more to
speak, open your lungs cause there is more to
breathe, and always more to dream.
time knows no end and stops for no man, not
even you who fails miserably at putting on smiles
and making a charade of life
faking
through life pretending you know how to
control it
with things
throw them aside.
the time has come to believe and
pick your dreams back up off the floor
where you let yourself and others trample
over them like marching soldiers through the mud.
throw them aside.
tricks and funnies will lead you
astray with the fake plasma tv screens and fake
fast shiny cars and men in perfect clothes that
dwindle on the strings of hopelessness as they
spiral out of control not understanding why or how.
hydroplaning and slip slopping through the rain
puddles that drown them
drown them in their own fears and insecurities.
no, throw them aside.
let go of everything holding you back with ropes
and vines that cut through your skin.
no, throw them aside.
let them cut your skin.
let them try to ruin you as you climb your way to
the top and drop it all to the ground. drop your
materials, drop your fears, drop your insecurity, drop
your phones and tvs and high speed internet cables.
drop your perfect house and perfect vision of your
perfect life and listen to it shatter when it hits the ground.
make room for the beauty screaming in your face. drop
everything and throw them aside.
throw them aside.
because you can't take them with you when you die.
HGM
9-4-08
