Category: met-uh-for

Swimming

A lot of progress in circles, swimming deeper, like a corkscrew. Sometimes circling several times on the same level, not really learning the lesson. Some circles are wide and lazy, without any real need to proceed deeper with haste. Other circles are tight and almost slanted before even one full revolution is complete, nose-diving for the bottom in this way. The ocean is deep, and there may or may not be treasure on the ocean floor where you land. You may also choose to swim wider circles at the same depth, or to swim the same circle over and over, content just to be swimming.

Originally written on: September 3, 2020

Posted on by Cole

These scissors

These scissors smell like they’ve told secrets to get here. Like there were barge men that needed bribing. Like this pair was part of a special pack at the factory that needed to go out right on time. They smell like the metal mined wasn’t enough and there’s still some poor miner there, mining for more. They smell like plastic that came from a big vat of plastic that has all since been molded into separate things and ended up elsewhere, individuated and useful in some capacity or another. These scissors smell like they are capable of cutting hair. They still smell like metal, though, and not like hair yet. Having not yet had the chance to actually cut hair, they reek of factory-made frustration. “Let us work!” they shout. Let us cut, and keep on cutting. Let us do whatever we were made for. Until we are broken and dead and gone and discarded. Let us work!

Posted on by Cole

fields of time

Perhaps perilous

Would pause be

For a picker

In the field of time

With only

A moment’s harvest

And drought

For a hundred years

Thereafter

Posted on by Cole

Writing my dreams

A daytime nap

Marries the motion

And light

Of the waking world

With the wonder

And formlessness

Of dream

Wherein the middle

Poetry lives

Dancing

Back and forth

In wheelbarrows

Full of dream

Dug up in sleep

And delivered

To be re-planted

Here in my bed

Brain tree

Putting down roots

Posted on by Cole

media room

i try to read

right before bed

ready with words

waiting

in my head

mixing and matching

meeting each other

making magic

in the midnight

like a media room

rushing

to go to press

in the morning

Posted on by Cole

bouncing

young

you bounce

from thing

to thing

like a pinball

bouncing

in between

believing

it must be this

no, then this

bouncing

back and forth

until old

realizing

it is none of it;

but rather,

something learned

from the bouncing

in between

Posted on by Cole

snake bus

looking back

on the bus

watching the inside

bend

like a snake

as the wheels

crawl

over hills

and the passengers

rise up

and down

in their seats

like kelp

on wave crests

Posted on by Cole

raccoon bag

a plastic bag

on the sidewalk

under the bridge

in the dark

blowing slowly

looking like

a raccoon

sleuthing around

Posted on by Cole

revolutionary morning

less colors

with the lights down

so everything

is closer to black

conforming

and becoming one

until

a revolutionary

non-socialist

morning

when individual

color rights

will have

their day

Posted on by Cole

drapes like dam

window drapes

like a dam

after a flood

in the morning

holding back

all that light

wanting in

to wake up

and start the day

Posted on by Cole

cars like waves

sometimes

they are smooth

like the ocean

sounds

of cars going by

so i sit

on our rug

in the apartment

as if

i was on the beach

in the morning

meditating

listening

to mechanical waves

Posted on by Cole

like driftwood

before

you know it

you’re moved

like driftwood

downstream

with all

the other

debris

that moves

with the river

to the same end

regardless

of where

you started

Posted on by Cole

sprinting a marathon

it seems to be

all coming

so you almost

want to sprint

even to death

because

this is it

but must balance

with the possibility

there is more

still to come

after a rest

and a meal

so still sprinting

to get somewhere

but not so fast

knowing

there will be more

Posted on by Cole

old lines

writing what i’ve

written before

because it’s safe

like a freestyle rapper

using old lines

without courage

to risk a mistake

and let everything

come out, as it will

Posted on by Cole

temper tantrum

if expecting

to write

not being

able to

because trying

to prepare

like making

the bed

for a child

that will sleep

on the floor

anyways

and so needing

to look away

and act

surprised

when another

comes

Posted on by Cole

art is like an egg

just needing a good sun nap

to forget everything i know

and fry my brain like an egg

so the art comes back into the void

from all around where it lies

in wait even when i think

it’s all gone but it’s really just

because i’ve been hard boiled

and in need of a scramble

Posted on by Cole

we are all fishing

we are all fishing. the world is globular and all water. all over, we speckle the surface, in our boats. some with different lures and others with longer lines, all fishing.

our bobbers on the surface tell us a shallow and single-pointed story of the beast beneath pulling on the other end of the line.

what we don’t know, at the center of it all, is the same big fish. it will pull you out of your boat and under and swallow you whole.

Posted on by Cole