Little Deaths Poem by Luke J. Holt

soak in the still
i am this

still as toys
they nod
like bells
to those who wince closer to the lids of noon

past the praying kin of rearing cornflowers
a ten-speed lies tangled
and i am this

a gored bull draped in a red quilt
i scream in the mirrors of the ugly
i am this

from Parnassus i can mail you rainbows
from the precipice clovers i can die of thirst

in heed to the night
with yawns that cling to dolomite walls
like flocks of silky bubbles

jangle of pocket change
i am this

swinging from these fixtures
i subject the lamp disavowed of shade to a wobbling, sleepy opera
the idea of my own self leaves me hissing
like a tarnished cymbal
and i am this

escape; revive; absolve; relinquish,
giving up takes only one cowardly muscle

i am turned to straw
by the obvious future

i am made volcanic
by the jilted past

i am grey schist
dull as my shoes to spoiled eyes

petulant to plugged ears

the wagon in tow
handless and receding
i am this

thyroidic dandelions; meddlesome ferns; forsythias on fire just from their own color;
to stick my two hands in the tortured earth and make them mothers

a musty wolf cackles
its not funny
not even a little


a sleeping hurricane
veiling the sun
with its yellow yarn split in warm shards
a storm that mourns fences
i am this

my pinions are heavy
with dirty rain
hanging in knobs like fruit
from purposeless wings

the sky is blue as senselessness
waiting is the woods at night