The Seventeenth


One last step completes the picture-
This, the seventeenth.
Fill out all the jagged borders.
Color empty.
Back to tonic.
Pull the shade in this, the seventeenth.

Blinding flash and gates reopened-
Ushered to the ball.
Here, a map to acclamation.
New seeds planted
In the moist dirt,
Watered in August before the Fall.

The sun, the gifts, the folderol-
Debts unpaid made light.
Reminded in the waking hours
Of the privilege
And the valor.
The slow self-immolation at night.

Nose to stone you learn the language-
Build to the veneer.
Blinking, blinking; never seeing
That which causes
Senseless blinking.
Never once appreciating fear.

Choices made without your input-
Learn to own the toil.
Now, begin to reap the harvest:
Choose from those they
Lay before you,
Failing to recognize your own soil.

Agency in precious context-
Find your place of work.
Green or blue or red or purple.
Pick a color,
Any color.
Otherwise, decide you are a clerk.

Strapped into the rails established-
Keep out of the dark.
Should you walk the path unbeaten,
You may find a
Most unsettling
Open field: your own unnat'ral Arc.

Shy away from self-inspection-
Something for the pain.
Pour it heavy; pour it three times.
Feed the demons,
Calm the tremors,
Soak the soil with your new brand of stain.

Put your heroes off to the side-
No more vacancies.
Put your lovers off to the side-
Love yourself or
Hate whatever.
Welcome: Emotional Vagrancies.

Don the suit and play with players-
Don't look down inside.
Vertigo awaits the searcher.
Topsy turvy,
Turn back outward.
World turns too, and flattens out the slide.

Make the novel calculation-
Give so you may take.
Keep one foot inside your conscience.
Come Reckoning,
You tell yourself:
The You that collects is not a fake.

Find the strength to make your statement-
Strive to sing your song.
Take your bow with qualified pride:
Your voice is yours,
Your words are yours,
Your melody was theirs, all along.

Look at people, all the people-
Go meet the partner.
Forge the bonds and make connections.
Look at people
Not as people.
Don't forget to go meet your partner.

Greet the dawn with trepidation-
Each day is a start.
Each start gains its paranoia
From the others,
From the silence
Beck'ning you to lock away your heart.

Hundred vacant helpless helpers-
Peerless peers who peer.
Does their silence spell compassion?
See me reaching.
Reach my ears and
Pull me from the loneliness of here.

Moment's peace of real connection-
Cut down by the clock.
Substantive: the change of setting
Seems to bring out
Truth in walkers,
Notwithstanding vocational shock.

Like your like likes like you liken-
Cut the thorough voice.
Keep it up and keep it down and
Limit yourself
To succinctness.
Time affords you something like a choice.

Cull the trim from crust of psyche-
Render what remains.
Suck and lap the twelve point spittle. 
Churn the fingers,
Dilate pupils,
Gaze upon the floor at all your gains.

Hop aboard with primed exub'rance-
Cars back from the helm.
Know not who conducts the engine
As you whistle
At the prospect
Of careening toward a murky realm.

Shiny couth imagination-
Lobbies filled with doors.
Queue up for the realignment.
The face remains
A bright signal
Powered by that prospect which restores.

Buy into the buying into-
Strong memetic stride.
Comfort in the trail emblazoned
With the blazers'
Blazers that you
Hope can manufacture you some pride.

Courting courts of every corpus-
Implicated brand.
Hold together how they hold you,
Sweating missiles
As you yearn for
Anonymity, the far off land.

Falling on the sword before you-
Deep and wide, the Maw.
Not quite choking on the thinner
Layer of dust,
You come back up,
Gasping for perspective, tooth and claw.

Hand in hand we keep toes pointed-
Wincing in the wind.
Drift apart, head facing downward,
Looking for the
Footsteps of the
Pack of Yesterday, before it thinned.

Comes the last approach the first time-
Climb into the pit.
Wonder about others' wond'rings:
Do they dabble?
Clean or ragged?
Who's to say what you should not permit?

Callous now the numbing ceases-
Fool yourself tonight.
Shunt the negative suggestions,
Turning up to
Turn them down and
Make them know it's not your place to fight.

Guilt in droves at every angle-
Let them make you up.
Keep that shred of confirmation
As you slink back
Into borrowed
Robes, still clenching someone else's cup.

Understand the farce unbreaking-
Mass hypnotic march.
Who among us won't point fingers?
Who among us
Won't point fingers
Out from under cover of the arch?

Empty eyes and salutations-
Title in a sound.
Chuckle through insipid greetings
Not quite present,
Half-perceptive,
Playing part and party from the ground.

At the altar of your oneness-
Gather round. All rise.
Pray to those who offer righteous
Feeling with the
Tinge of bitter.
Prostrate now or rip off the disguise.

Calling back the story spinners-
Fein the valor look.
Ride the costume from the collar,
Choking on the
Mem'ry of the
Fiction you once battled on the hook.

Quiet now return to prior-
Count the grays in spades.
Firm composure eking outward
Just until the
Morning calls to
Offer up the sausage on the blades.

Soon we will shed all approval-
Take the step to then.
Cry out when the last bell's finished.
Brassy round tones
Mark your essence,
Riding on the missive and the pen.
 
Shortened glance without a claim check-
Witness your own gaze.
Take the time to check your sides, but
Never stop to
Stop or stop to
Try to see the haze as merely haze.

One last step completes the picture-
This, the seventeenth.
Fill out all the jagged borders.
Color empty.
Back to tonic.
Pull the shade in this, the seventeenth.