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Poetry || SubmissionsFive pieces by Michael Spielman1 There is a place within the headache that reeks of dead mouths, where a prophet coils like a tapeworm under the ribs of the tongue. I am speaking of the one who came long before out of nowhere and asked me blindly to follow him through a thicket of vague recollections not even my own. I heard third hand a mouth without a face declare that in the beginning, two forms broke the link between themselves and the almighty and were forced to gorge forever on a chalice of their own fluids while their progeny be cyclically damned to the limits of each other's skin. That being said, the one who came at me with the idea that an end exists, dragged a sack behind him bigger than all the bricks in Cleveland. You make your choices but not always the desired thing occurs, I told him, but he was already long gone. And if there is an end to anything, I don't need to know about it. Recognize and move on, over and over, keep moving. You are not searching for one. 2 the silence and no one worries anymore about the rain washing away the sidewalk scrawled in colored chalk or the cat hanging out all night long tussling with the back alley shadows a gray laced shoe strapped to a foot, hooked to a leg, turned in a torso, necked to a face, with eyes that see the eighteen pigeons clawed around the phone line stretching overhead steps on the pedal of a blue Ford truck sounds of the engine's rev, tires, axles, asphalt, invades the ears while the smoke from those rusted lips spits through the blue of the sky come home soon, it's been centuries 3 so here's to the going, going, the gone goodbye to the lady who's red dress and windswept mercy of a brick building side's shadow in the summer flame here's to the parched breast, and what's left when all's been said the alley cat the girl's sweat across the face that shakes the leaves from trees here's to the fist full of claws picking apart the sky dropping penance on our heads here's to my dad's last breath his heart attack face and the no-hitter he hurled in Kokura 1952 here's to his death, his fat skull shed and his eternal rest here's to you old friend so you may avoid the bitter ends I drink this drink of desert and ash and settle in for the dark night of returns 4 We'll meet again over there just beyond that far rock rise, that last hill, atop that mountain that climbs and climbs through the clouds and through the sky. There's a field of yellow ankle grass ringed by branchy trees and sung to by all of these birds unseen I've been mentioning. Come, I'll be waiting there with a fist full of seeds for you to bring back when its time to leave. We can talk about what that means when you get here. Come, we'll linger, its been too long, come. 5 Absence and right here accept my embrace. I, a faithful servant of the distances am one of your many souls attempting to bridge your vast and filthy ends. There are no abyss's. Only doors and locks and unlocks, done time, desires, folly and eyes. Only old times, where margaret's face glimmers under early morning moonlight, and not all is as dark as the shroud around me. But listen, the sound daylight makes knifing through the dawn sky. The hovering clock tower and its morning doom doom. The beady-eyed glow of pigeon and crow, perched on telephone poles, carcass of alleylight, cobbled street and moon now moving behind the dawn clouds. Through the far dry creek beds: vagrants, coyotes, vultures, wrappers and cans, cigarette nubs and wily forms. Thoughts settle thinly over the brain where the spirit's ache creates a laughing within the bones. Where it may be without dying possible in this world to escape this cycle of fear and need. About this may I have a word with you? Michael Spielman is a park ranger living in Tucson Arizona. Today's Situation
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