Let There Be

Let there be darkness so I might sleep

beneath the dead distant stars, their slow light

navigating this leaking wreck

so I might believe in solid ground.

Let there be land at dawn so I might love

the rot and lay upon it.

Let there be.

Let there be.

Let there be some refuge there.

© Ami Mattison

Flickr photo courtesy of Libertinus

For G-Man's Friday Flash 55

Dying Leaves

The dying leaves

                             lie in dense drifts

across the fenced space behind my home.

Summer’s last refuge, the green grass

pokes out from beneath the decomposition.

Soon, the grass blades will die like the leaves,

and winter’s glacial coat will cover

the hibernating ground.

The snow always reminds me of innocence,

while the half-alive leaves, shed from guilty trees,

is evidence of too much living.

Lips Lungs Tongue

I.

Lips, lungs, tongue.

Lips, lungs, tongue.

I’m smoking a cigarette outside the airport terminal,

when it raises its head, curls, then snakes

its way to my inner ear, settles there,

sounding soft and sanctimonious:

You make a living

from your lips,

your lungs,

and your tongue.

I hadn’t thought this thought this way before:

my lips

my lungs

my tongue.

Everything hinges on my body parts, moving,

working as involuntary gestures, or at least

the way I will them, and I’m smoking

a cigarette, outside the airport

in white, cold Michigan.

On the church steps in downtown Nashville, 2004

Listen to audio version

We put on a show.

Yelled, real loud, top-of-our-lungs rhyme

for the folks drinking five-dollar coffees

at the Starbucks across the street.

Minton suggested the church steps,

even though they didn’t say we could.

What they gonna do? Arrest us?

She shrugged one shoulder, wagged

her hand, then performed

a little ditty about war.

Undertow

Bottle slung against my parched lips,

deep-throated swallow, there’s a hollow

space behind my blood-shot vision.

I’m on my knees, worshipping

a toilet where my liquid guts

get flushed like yesterday

or last month. I can’t remember.

In the hallway, I stumble, fall hard

knock my teeth against floorboards.

My naked legs splayed, my naked arms splayed,

my belly wrenches and heaves spit.