we walked
stretched miles
without words.
when I tired
he dragged.
when I sat mulelike
he glowered.
he did not tell me where
we were going in
those endless miles,
interminable minutes.
his face read
need
and I reluctantly followed as
those dragging minutes and seconds.
in the cold
my furry collar bundled up against my face
and the warm air of my breath
quickening as time shuffled like a palsied man.
I mewled,
I whined
to no avail,
he determined to get where we were going
we passed darkened buildings
as the sun’s light waned
and my anxieties waxed--
darkened alleyways,
dark drunks lying prone,
dark peeing men,
and in the light of a streetlamp
he saw
what he desired --
his egg-shell Studebaker
nestled between a black Ford
and a red Chevrolet.
not sure which was the front or the back,
I was only pleased to be in it
after he opened the doors.
no words
only the smell of stale cigarettes
and the delight of having arrived.
Empty Room
Two brains in two large glass jars
One brain slightly smaller than the other
Each a crenellated mass of rivers
Some flowing south and others north.
Each capable of thought
One heartful and moist
The other frigid and cold.
One brain is filled with multifarious tiny boxes
Overlapping one another
Spilling ideas like a waterfall
Into the others
a morass of dizzying perplexities
splashing, noisy goblets of water
traipsing the glassy surface like a ballerina.
The other brain has far fewer boxes
That all fear bumping into the others
There’s little if any spillage
And one large box is reserved
As the empty room where quiet prevails
The box lumbers in its silence
like a bear searching the forest floor.
Talks of the Unknowable
They mischievously play footsie with little men,
tease them answerless.
Before Adam’s apocalypse
the earth, lingered with bated breath in the vast expanse.
Apples fell with silent thunks to the ground.
A train blew a plaintive whistle,
Gnostic challenge that pinged from one star to the next.
Shadows dressed walls interrogatively with cosmological demiurges of light.
They created it, hidden under the streetlamp of ego
where the other confounded finds deeper shadows.
Was there use for the other in an ephemeral world?
Human heart begs it.
The end, the beginning, of the phenomenology of life.
Adam inquires, telegraphs the question across the stars--
searches forever for the pearl,
the answers to the destruction of the Temple,
talks of the unknowable.
Her Dust Clings
I stole her paper smells and crackling turns.
Yes, and I’m proud of it; her memories are mine.
Another guiltless excursion into
promises made--I will love you forever.
Broke her cover; sat down with her for hours.
Hands lazed over her spine,
grasped her soul in my hands and became one.
Wrapped her every word in canyons of synapses,
sojourned through her verdant valleys, caressing each blade of grass,
breathed in her deliciously dusty realities.
Like a cocaine addict or a bee lusting nectar,
could not put her down, dreamed her dreams, hoarded every morsel.
Her dust clung to me,
the under-the-bed tumbleweed balls that gather unannounced.
Last page turned in sweaty withdrawal.
Back cover slapped closed, a thunderclap.
Rapid sighs fill the room with moments of her, leave little time for remorse.
I’m through, she’s read, on to the next.
Sy Roth has published in many online publications such as Bitchin’ Kitsch, Scapegoat Review, The Artistic Muse, Napalm and Novocain, Euphemism, Ascent Aspirations, Fowl Feathered Review,Wilderness House Journal, Aberration Labyrinth, Mindless(Muse), Avalon Literary Review andKerouac’s Dog. Sy was selected as Poet of the Month in Poetry Super Highway, September 2012.
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