Metamorphosis
How does a caterpillar become a butterfly.
How does it feel inside the chrysalis.
Is it aware of anything changing.
When does it become aware again.
How does it wait so patiently
to dry off its wings, and fly.
Does it have any memory
of when it could only crawl.
How long does it think it will be,
before it is something else.
How did every molecule of its beautiful
wings know exactly what color
to choose.
She said––
bowling balls keep falling out of your ears and
I want you to be careful because
I don’t want to break my stilettos.
She said––
your knee caps are schools of fish
that sometimes take off in different directions
and if you don’t get better climbing the stairway
I can’t let you visit anymore.
She said––
you are an apple, but I’m the tree,
so don’t ever hurt me, because
you’ll only be hurting yourself.
She said––
you are a spaceman and the only grounding you have
is the dust on the bottom of your space boots,
and that’s o.k. but why can’t you have more gravity,
when you look at the stars in my eyes.
In my lungs
a tree of black crows
flying into the winter sky.
Their death caw echoes
off the frozen ground.
I am in the red chair
in the bird room.
Time has quit
existing.
now and then I crumble into the sea and dissolve
and there’s nothing left of me. all my particles and particulars blown apart like
little grains of salt in the ocean.
what a relief it must be when I am floating so free. . .
inside the rolling waves.
before I re-assemble
and then eventually begin to tremble
thinking I’m someone,
and only me.
I’m going down the highway, my tires are on fire.
The pavement is burning behind me.
I hold my thoughts real still,
I don’t blip the radar.
I slam through little towns like a crazy dust devil,
swirl into the Tiny Mart for food and drink.
White lines yellow lines white lines yellow lines.
Scenery goes upside down through my optic nerve,
is flipped by my brain, and then whispers
every thought I ever had, and then forgot, and then
had again, and then forgot again.
The bigger the map I have, the smaller the roads I take.
I drive through some towns because of their name.
It all flashes by and is gone.
Mirages of water stretch like fake lakes and oceans
ready to blaze at the kiss of a Zippo.
I drift like waves trying to climb stairs.
I float on the ocean in a boat with no name,
get tossed in the hurricane.
from an airplane you can see me, just a dot
down below, floating in circles to and fro,
either running away or trying to go home.
adrift in eternity on the endless sea.
wherever it comes from, wherever it goes,
seems you have to lose everything,
or how do you know.
it is early in the morning
and I stare at my coffee
but I can’t see the future.
if I could, I’d want to change it,
but that’s not part of the bargain.
the past is either set in concrete,
or a mirror full of strobe lights–
the coffee won’t explain that either.
everything I do
sets something in motion
I get dizzy.
