Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Rust in Our Wake

Envious spirits, we trespass
grinning, holding bolt cutters
against our hearts in false
salute to the signs we read
and ruined, perforated now
with buckshot and thrown
ditchward to rust in our
wake.

All that we are foresworn,
oh, those things are coveted
and stolen, kept wrapped in
old, stained shirts, kept in
ancient footlockers handed
down from veterans we
only half knew, locked
down tight so they could
never get away.

Mustn't let the dreams
we took from others, the
lives we see within the
totems our clumsy hands
could never fashion--
mustn't relax that
awful, grim grip or
forget for one second
that reflection in the eye
of those fallen to us, too
hard in their defense of
what we must have and
can't consider living without...

Then we're caught, and
those vengeful eyes are
upon us, gray and sinful
as we are, covetous
troglodytes living down in
the oily gears, only seen
with our masks on to
hide our strange features
from the delicate betters.

We live tangentially,
relying on the having,
relying on relational meaning,
corollaries of the real
thing, burgled since the
store-bought sort of
oblivion drug has
always been too much.

Happy with all that is
horrid, strong enough to
carry the guilt and shame
loaded onto our backs,
we grab again toward
the light, to whatever
new thing,

--new good reality--

can keep the
screaming of the wind
away for one more
subterranean day.

4 comments:

Bill said...

Wandering, lost in a reality... Lost and I haven't left home.

Nice piece.

Patrick M. Tracy said...

Bill,

Thanks for coming over. I appreciate your comments.

Erin,

There's no intrusion, first of all. I welcome anyone who wants to look around, and comments always make my day. I'm glad that Ken's comments brought you here, and I hope for many happy returns.

In respect to your kind words, I can only say thank you. I went to your site and read some of your recent work. I was intrigued by your cadence and word choice. I'll have to dig deeper and see all that you've been up to. It didn't seem like your blog had a spot for comments, though. Am I wrong?

Anyway, thank you both for taking the time to say hello.

Patrick M. Tracy said...

Erin,

I'm sorry to hear about your stalker. I read more of your work, and I have to say that you give yourself too little credit. Some of the issues you tackle seem very substantial to me. Very substantial, indeed, and I think you show a lot of personal fortitude to share them with the open forum. I hope this praise isn't too unpalatable for you, but I think you deserve it.

Anonymous said...

Hi P. You are an amazing writer. I couldn't help but think of all of the ridiculously huge escalades driving around, demanding more and more fuel, "respect", and prestige, when in fact their drivers are mere idiot consumers, falling to the siren song of Madison Ave, always consuming more more more. Very nice work, and I'm so happy to see you available to such a wider audience!
Keep up the great work!
Holly

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