Poetry Collection.

"Distortion."

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Who do you think you are?

And so the words go,
stiff to seep into those brittle bones like ice in the dead of winter,
like the desolate cold and a broken heater;
the desperate rage of the fireplace.

I'll sit on the brick with a tattered book in hand and stare beyond the ink of mind,
the label of heart, the blur of soul—

to stare into the shifting universe
beyond unsteady nomenclature,
beyond the language,
that of which I do not speak
and do not know;

or do I?

Unknowing,
accidental,
a coincidence to coincide with the molten eyes.

And, truly, we know not of what we speak in the desperate hour,
nor sound or piece of mind to justify the secrets we share with the frozen lake.
Is that the path we breed
or simply, prior to our presence, the one cut,
upon which we meander in a thick fog;
the lowly clouds—their ice crystals shimmering mere inches from our noses—of a certain, weary despair.

And we think,
just because the sun is gone,
so, too, are the souls in the deranged
and the point in the rambling.
So, too, is the lone star, drowning in its raging, raving lake of boundless eternity—

and what do we think we mean
when we speak of the universe and of existence, purposeful?
Must I monetize my soul just to consume water,
just to warm my skin in the freezing dawn,
just to exist on Earth—

which, as I know and breathe,
knows and breathes,
and knows that I know
that I don't.

Does it have meaning?
Purpose?

Do I know of what I am;
do I know of what I think?

And if the child is to speak more eloquently than I,
and to think of life more wistfully than I,
does that inscribe me biased?

Can I forget truths, unforgettable,
or was it purposeful in my efforts to numb my mind,
to seek solace in the frozen fingers
not unlike the icicles that hang from the chipped and worn doorframe,
clattering together in some sort of clear and crystal melody—

that pure sound of glacial winds whistling through the enduring pine trees;
those pines of towering and unwavering wisdom
with which I regard unending veneration
and everlasting
envy.

Is it all the same

to remember until I forget—
to forget which parts of myself are held frozen in the limelight
in that haphazard desperation to know and to dream;
and, likewise, which parts have sunken like the leaden hook,
the line from which it snapped
and left mangled and twisted in the depths of that cold, drifting lake,
trapped beneath those crystalline sheets—

or to forget to remember—
that simple act of not knowing
of what I know
To stifle, mine conscious, in a shallow grave
and to somehow hope
and dare to pray
that it sinks deeper than the bones in the glaciers
and the sinkers in the lakes,
its sustenance left out to rot in the bitter, biting snow.

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(December 19th, 2023.)