Silent apology for silence

While Burning Man (and women)

it isn't just the way I sing
(I cry, you seem), but
this sharper vision runs wild in colour
(rather than wait the patient stream...)

Is it so true (or valid to ask)
whether dust or rain
      or time? I recover

some blade of grass
from this puzzle piece (past).

I see this. I know it's mine.

-------

When we bothered in another life to commit this thought to words,
I wondered then (as I do now) - These games are so absurd.

It's so loud on Saturday!  (we keep the earth awake,
tomorrow morning, even the sun will be groggy.)
Whether the sand means to house all this deep, dirty bass
(to put it away for The Great Quiet that comes when the stars are unhinged -
when the pieces of the moon grow tired of each other,
when the man in the tiger suit finally ceases to see
the humour, the humour
of the mouse.)....

then let the sands release these sounds as prayer, as a cry for some big house party
she never got to host,  for all the careless guests
she never got to greet,  for all the cheap drinks
that were never spilled on her perfect Persian rugs.

-----

If I knew how to write a prayer,
I'd write one for you.
Just a rhyme scheme or
same canon of words escapes me.
It's just, a prayer of this magnitude -
I'd write all day and never begin,
and the beginning would seem like the end,

But every time I start,
someone backs up into me
with glow in the dark pasties
proclaiming plastic nipple nonsense,
(and a tittering of glitter-wings)

So I start your prayer again.

(I've never hurt like I do with you:
This prayer shapes me empty,
like the big old desert wind.)

---

I wrap my stony fingers around
my tangled curls.

I turn to stone. I turn to stone.
I turn to stone in the sun.

wake up, look at the morning, find time
for teeth and hair,
And cover that shifting skin of yours:
get fresh!
get to the office
put people in boxes!
admire the containers.
admire the contained.

---

December 12. 2012.

That sound you hear while we sleep?
That is only
the subtle opening and closing
of the gills on the fish
that ate my heart
(and sits in my ribcage,
pretending, pretending,
pretending.)