Words and Feathers

i wing my way
over the stubble field
the grain shaved
from the earth
few kernels left for scavengers like mice
or me
and come to rest on your shoulder

you don’t greet me
with words
but the breeze animates
your straw head
and it looks like you nod

friend–I say–
friend, my visits to you end today
there is a horizon that calls to me
and the field has been harvested
and soon you will descend this pole
borne away by hands of flesh and blood

i wish i knew what would become of you

the wind makes you shrug
as if the question doesn’t concern you
perhaps it doesn’t

to the west the sun melts into the horizon
whispering my name
or was that you
speaking so low that I doubt
all of my senses
even the common one

you think he moves slowly
but the atoms and subatomic particles
that comprise
his mucosal turd-like body
move at the speed of light
he is constantly flying apart
like an atom bomb
splitting, dividing
burning the oxygen
out of the sky
but you watch and feel sorry
for how long it takes him
to get across the sidewalk
motherfucker, he’s already where
he needs to be
he’s fucking everywhere
and so are you
and because of the illusion of solidity
you pass right through each other
without even touching
without so much as leaving a grease stain
just like in all your star trek wet dreams

we all come from the ocean
or
we are all stardust
or
we are the universe talking to itself

now we look into the mirror
and
we pollute the air to reach the stars
and
we hear the ocean in our ears
when we try to fall asleep
taste salt in the back of our throats
dissolve back into particles
and
finally sine waves infinitely long

heads on sticks
we ride around like
we’re playing cowboy
ghosts holding the reins

what did one horse say
to the other
how should I know
i don’t speak
disembodied horse head

clutching the poles
with our thighs
charging forward
clip-clop noises
with our mouths

clip-clop noises with our hearts

what these lines trace
these light emitting diodes
tiny man-made replicas of suns

words too
man-made replicas of memories
crawling furred feelings
wriggling from organ to organ
soldering themselves to thoughts
spit from synapse to soiled synapse
screaming in sweaty discharge and
like ectoplasm
like psychic snot on a psychic doorknob

slicker than snot on a doorknob
my dad used to say
who even knows what that means

how many years has he been in the ground now
his voice comes to me in dreams
his personality some frankenstein chimera of
my own worm squirming issues

these lines
march
dragging me along with them
kicking up ashes while we maintain a rhythmic step

flat water churning sand
tide returning beach
to beach wetter and colder

i remind myself
that this is the same ocean
i grew up with in california

but here on this gray day
on this gray sand
it is alien sea