Shroud
(cinders on the heart)
Epiphany at Locker 32
(cinders on the heart)
it’s dark here
I can’t see a thing…..
it’s quiet, dead-empty,
even my heartbeat is hollowed of sound,
I don’t know if i’m standing,
or lying aground:
I know where i am
but can’t move or sink or swim,
I feel cold
and i feel old.
yeah, i know, i know. it’s the soltice;
some slithery serpentine’s devil’s kiss;
like a long drawn-out permanent midnight,
the gross absence of daylight……
and these cheap couplets
like leftover stinking thanksgiving giblets,
toxic, confusing, unintelligible myths, i’m
wandering lost in labyrinths.
It’s dark here.
i’m standing by locker 32
and so i play my same game:
where was i when i was 32?
who was president?
where was i a resident?
did i own, or did i rent?
it’s a locker, 32, made in the usa: oakes, pa.
is it still there, do they have a
high school? did the plant close?
were there cheerleaders, now long gone,
except the old waitress who slouches
with red lipstick on her cigarettes
and reminds everyone how she was one
in the golden age of Oakes, for real,
when no one had yet heard the phrase foreign steel?
where was I when 32,
I was hungry then, and thirsty too,
and I was so much older then
like dylan sing’s in memory,
as I crawled desperate towards 33,
but now, although I stand
naked, beat-up, drenched in sweat before
locker 32:
it’s dark here, and
this heart is almost ashes,
barely a spark, hardly heat, and
I can’t see a thing,
i’m empty, i’m lost, it’s capricorn,
and I lament at any cost,
and wish i’d never been born.
when the brain
goes up in flames
the resulting ashes
fall from the head down
and sometimes settle like
cinders on the heart,
where,
if there’s still a beat,
some blood flowing through,
and a hint of heat,
the embers can stir
a forgotten desire,
and the smoldering smoke
can turn ashes to fire.
so I wait, and hope, and pray,
for a cinder to catch
and bring light and warmth
to this now, right here,
and pull me back into
a brighter day.
And somewhere in the
deepest recesses of time:
some unknowable place
where even now and then
confuse each other,
where darkness dances
with light
so that day is night
and night is a
flavor on the tongue;
where someone’s son
can be someone’s mother,
and someone old becomes
someone young;
where light is a thing
only known
and not seen,
and sound can be
wrapped around
and around
itself
so the utterance
of a name
can go on forever
in a blink
never sound the same
flow like a river and
sink like a stone;
in this place
the connection is made
that stretches
into a knowable now,
kapow.
in this place
souls dance and collide,
become one and split off
beyond physical dimensions,
in this place
maybe within or maybe without,
barely a sound, hardly a voice,
echoes inside my head:
rejoice.
did I hear that right?
am I in the right place?
is there really a road with forks
and choice?
I could have sworn I’d heard
deep from the darkness,
stirring this sack of bones and aging flesh,
one single word: rejoice!
and I’m thinking, is this epiphany
standing before locker 32?
do I smell smoke? I look around
for any other sound or evidence
pointing to the hand of providence,
but I’m alone. the spark
from outside time, that conjures the whole,
kindles the dark, and saves my soul.
rejoice in the day, the light, the breath!
dance and spin before the day begins!
make love to the moon,
walk with laughter,
cry in the arms of someone you love,
sing in a chorus
and thank the stars
and thank each other,
and dream the light so bright
it’ll carry us all the way to aquarius,
and dream this,
this here, this now,
this moment, this present,
this sound of a singular vow:
a kiss.
dream it all while we’re awake,
take it home tonight,
connect the dots and
make new constellations.
the beat of my heart
is a great place to start,
the song in my soul
as old as the universe,
as new as an infant’s cry,
shall harmonize and continue
long after I die.
we have
two gifts
given at birth
ours to cherish til
we leave this earth:
inhalation and exhalation.
take in the breath
and we stave off death:
a dance, a chance
to bring hope and light and love and
whatever
we want into our lives,
an opportunity for rebirth and relife;
the exhale is our opportunity to shed,
clear our head,
cleanse and expel
our private hell;
extinguish the karmic
conflagration:
these are our weapons
of creation
of this life, this life, this fine life,
this wine life, this living breathing thing that surrounds us,
comforts and tears us and clears us and wears us down
and brings us up and leaves us lonely and
takes us into the hearts of strangers and connects us,
and loves us and breathes us, and fills us,
and fills us, and fills us.