Nowhere Near Done Poem

It’s amazingly peaceful as memory
Us
On a raft

Cautious steps down Charleston streets
White dresses to twirl in, mirror assurance
Flaws, sweaty palms
But nothing
To break our hand-hold
Tight

Somewhere before a line that was crossed was peace from a battle
Calm born of gunsmoke
A hypnotizing swirl silent as it pulls us under
No lovers embrace
Just a head touch
A second guess
To break our hand-hold
Tight

And jubilee in the midst of profound hurt
The reunion of sorts
where nothing was the same
would EVER
be the same
again

Sometimes there are parades in my head
Now, if I’m alone, well, then it’s reality
But in the middle of the day
When something goes right
The committee gets together and says
We need to throw a party

at that point in time you could conjure up a tornado
glare at me with hate
rain on my parades
and i would still want to dance

flung

flying through the air, flung by forces mightier
the lines of a brush paint the world as it whizzes by

me, pudgy, petrified

the water below has a wicked sulfur stench
or burns my nose as if it did

and it reflects (an eventual archnemesis) the sunlight

and I, having no idea what effect beyond the present this moment would have

screamed

sliding in the mud, murky
we gather things from around us to build
our identity
and they slide away at first rain

with gloves oversized, impossible to feel
external fingers
detached
dismembered
no
that would offer the relief of finality
the security of abandonment

magnet

force, space, rubber air
here is there is where
my mind spins
stop stop stop stop
it's only mental but dismembered fingers
press from both sides
stop

where is it that you are that you look back and constantly tell yourself you saw that coming. where are you when the thunderclap of other people's revelations about you outbooms your own epiphanies? where did you go? did you go wrong, or gently into that good night. they tell you two roads diverge, but not that your soul may along them. you contest that the great myth of experience is that they, superhighway roads, never converge again...this selflie hope, where did you conjure it from?

I sense you have no answers for me. I see you running alongside the speeding locomotive, seeing yourself there in the train oblivious to your own futile, yet heroic attempts to... what?

escape

rickety rickety rickety rack
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh FLASH

dark outside, light now aboard the train. those who retire early slumber in their cars leaving the aisles to those who roam and seek out the power of walking against time while in its belly.

rickety rickety rickety rack, whooooooosh dining car

never orient express, simply formica, relocated high school cafeteria and kidface smears on toocold glass. one other person, never the one

a subtle sway, S-like down the tracks... there going by too fast to exist, save for a light along side a station house. where are we going?