folding inward

from a Ses­tina attempt writ­ten 1996?

this body with its blood pound­ing and nerves electric
jud­ders with raw life and shivers at your touch
i am a shell you hold to your ear, and in its empty
hollow hear the sounds of the sea.
I’m not really here, though there’s room
for debate on that. No one ever asks me how I feel.

snap­shot: there’s only enough room
in the world for silence; as if all the empty
clam­our and vacant move­ment should sud­denly touch
an edge it can’t ignore. A breath here, a blink there,
a note held.

we sit in nicot­ine stained spaces
wait­ing, frantic, bored, frenetic
empty
blind as pain
the coffee on the stove
the tor­rent of words, these outpourings,
irrel­ev­ant in that moment, secret in that room
lit only by a single elec­tric globe
smothered
by the white foam of elec­tric snow,
the tv signal jarring
the pat­terns formed from ran­dom­ness, a touch
of spiralling chaos bounded by a black frame
held for this moment only,
swirl­ing madly, empty
watched by empty skulls with empty eyes and empty heads

this faith in the elec­tric mes­siah tends to deter trust
my fin­gers go through the wall, beyond the room

i stand
not without a touch of madness
strung out along an elec­tric wire
this neon body echo­ing and nerves jangling
the dis­tant roll of surf
loud