The Hours I've Spent

Time is a concrete web.

Like a syntax for alien gods, it eludes my understanding.

These days, my stomach protrudes like a senator's:
feet forever cloaked in shadow.

Keep me sane, my hired hand. 
Hold me close as the earth careens.
Watch over my aspirating physique. 

It is the smell of nursing homes and flowers folding,
the sun declining on the works of man. 

A Recollection

I fell into this world,
given birth by a void. 

Womb-wrought,
I sat and stalled
on the periphery of time.
In all directions a silent space. 

Grim leather doctor, 
with gnarled hands and tawny skin, 
you tear me like giblets from my sanctuary. 

Slap me on the counter-top scale and
swaddle me in wax-paper. 

Mark my status: alive and feeble. 
Hand me over, choking on birth-matter. 

Tall figures cast shadows on my form:
sinister giants who tower over the disinfected landscape like Titans.

My mind is a template,
my bones are gelatin.
A weak vessel. A compilation of empty echoes.

Eventually a nipple beckons.