This Nothingness
© Michael Schmidt, 2020
now this is something, this nothingness
if i suddenly stop, the afterecho of
the wet suck of my boots is all there is
even the rasp of my breath wisps away
there's the ruin of a chinese lantern
some sort of unseen bird in the hedgerow
and the far cadence of a siren
like the tutored grief of a professional mourner
in twilit eighteenth-dynasty egypt
the sky a bruised smear, a beaten dancer
the television tower off-channel like alexanderplatz
the cycads silent detonations of rust
the buildings cavernous, unwelcoming
no-one lives here anymore
smirks the marlin
the fishermen have all drowned in their nets
they dream like garcía lorca
the bullet humming in his brain like a bee
of vines entangling our skyscrapers
of anacondas loving our dreams to death
were we beautiful in transit
were we something to behold
an ectoplasmic comet
barely there, and then gone?
[ENDS]
