Pre-Cell Observations In Two Parts

.
1.1
In the evening our bellies are full
as summer fills the streets with speckled stories --
we wait for anything
under the copper calm
the city is littered with questions,
a resistance to patterns
beneath the mundane welt of stars --
quiet on the AM radio, naked without noise;
staring at the girls that flaunt their features.

1.2
Getting back
to the city and trying to find
where my head was transformed --
can barely find the old house.
Neglected history collides
with curiosity,
connections to be exhumed:
a father instructs, a mother praises,
and there is some deep-rooted comfort
in this happy family image,
but I know far more
about the things that were wasted as I stare
into the small mirror.

2.1
The pain in my bent thumb
impairs my ability to hear the Mozart concerto that plays on
as the dust settles around the car accident,
a cop floats into view
with a trained brain to organize his movements
and large eyes to take in the mechanics of gore.

Real life is a complex tunnel,
sometimes dull until reaching the abrupt end

like a spiraling tide.

2.2
I've trapped myself within the snowbank --
an isolation that infuses the quiet with weight,
guilt is not the answer
but as is usually the case
a better one does not exist.
The police can't find this sanctuary,
just one missing adversary
in the clotted system,
always
glad
to survive
another curse
that hangs in
the air like
railway smoke.

~

words: Tyler Cobb, Minnesota (The Relapse)
image: 'May Mile Sunset' - Justin Kern, Chicago (The Windy Pixel)

~

another isolation that infuses the quiet with weight: Butler Creek (#21)