Dorchester

Freehand hieroglyphics telephone
Dialing the telltale hardscrabble
To tell the plain lace of survival
it will never assume never pretend
the longbow of the tongue behind
the teeth: dental, the grenade of
the plosive outburst, the long fuse
of the guttural glottal, we're still
here, we're still working for you
especially when those artful weapons
are deployed in the imagination
to replay the day, reploy other
language or unsaying that might
have worked better for the self
to get what it wants, which is not
always easy to track-though pretty
basic drive to breathe enough
eat more than my share, never
be wrong, always be liked, get away
with the stories I make to keep all
that strong and unbroken but what
always messes it up well 2 things
the long-term survival, mutating
variables of sound freedom, music
play the barehanded muck and juggle
with the elements that lets
something else emerge and
destabilizes the drive molecules,
tears the story chart. That
and its sister engine to know
(is it different than to love?)
while beading new stones
are storms that rip the humid
air with coolfronts, cumulonimbus,
rain that cuts softly through
everything

     washing chalkmark, static on
the line, dredging the muddy
lace from its dark burrow under
the telephone book at the bottom
of the puddle to talk to it
directly in a language other
than reassurance, sycophantic
kissass, consolidation cavewoman

Hey survivor,
let's blow this television
and chill out beyond even
the Ethernet, uncaught, alive.