Friday, July 27, 2012

AURORA


Is that the humming of a god or a fallen angel that he hears? 
There is so much white noise that it is deafening.
It comes in waves.
As he sits in the courtroom,
his hair dyed red and orange, his mind wanders.
He is not dreaming. He is wide awake.

He sees things no one else sees.
He heard sirens
wailing months before the killing.
He saw pools of blood at his feet.
He saw birds trapped in a cave with no way out.
(Schizophrenia is a diagnosis but not an explanation.)

A woman holds a white rose and prays for the dead,
others join her,
their heads bowed in sorrow.
A newborn baby is placed on his father's belly.
He does not know his child is there.
He is in a coma.

There is a bandage over his eye where the bullet
entered his brain.
A ventilator helps him breathe.
He does not know that twelve died
in the back of theater nine.
He does not know how the movie ended.

Is that the humming of a god or a fallen angel that we hear?
There is so much white noise that it is deafening.
It comes in waves.
Our minds wander. We are not dreaming.
We are wide awake.
We see things that no one should ever see.




Tuesday, July 10, 2012

LONG INTO THE NIGHT


Long into the night, I drift in and out 
of a fog, with numbers 
whirling around my head,
with clouds hovering in the darkness,
with zeroes 
made up of nothing but air,
with stars floating on the edge 
of an indigo ocean.

If I had a rocket ship, 
I would search those stars out
and then make a map 
and mark their exact location, 
so others could then plot a course 
and find me there,
an astronaut, 
a kind of sailor, unmoored .