The smug cup of tea that starts to boil
The pixelated image on the monitor
A video game with a stuck soldier
The veins in my hands
The high whine of my refrigerator
Constant in my head
The shifting weight of a dead cat in a shoe box
The saved house and the house burnt to the ground
Matter changed not destroyed
Creaking underpinnings of a carousel
A torn rag doll
Spewing out cotton innards
What is this chemical peel that rents through our world
Bends us over, flesh and soul
© 2008 Audri Phillips
2 comments:
I love this line:
"What is this chemical peel
that rents through our world
Bends us over, flesh and soul"
Love it.
and these too:
"Creaking underpinnings
of a carousel
A torn rag doll
Spewing out cotton innards" (except I'd remove the word "out")
good stuff.
I'd rearrange this: "The shifting weight of a dead cat in a shoe box"
to this: "In a shoe box, the shifting weight of a dead cat"
So that the shocking punch line "dead cat" is at the end.
Haunts me. Such palpable and poignant examples, the content of each moment so highly charged, and yet so indifferent. Behind all our attributions of meaning, the sheer mechanics of the world. Is it entropy? "The veins in my hands." This poem has a growing power. And it's beautiful.
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