Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Punctuation


The insatiable seeping of self
is the issue
a word which means both product,
and problem
a variance that smells like
both life and death, or perhaps
salt and iron.
At the very least it is a tension
the incapability of retaining
the sort of thing which ought to be restrained:
words, emotions, vital fluids.
On the other side of tension
is a laxity which begins with sleep
and grows into weakness
to both not move, and not desire to,
a slow-breathing passivity.
At the most, there is pain
both in loss, and in the failure
to prevent loss,
which is a different sort of ache
built on possibility and bruised somewhat
by statement.
The issue is, out loud, unstated
being in itself, a state
and therefore determined by such
boundaries as may be drawn
invisibly
across hills, or plains, or time
demarcating such things as beginnings
centers, and ends.
It begins with a hint of this
coming or building or swelling
and ends with an epilogue
a promise of sequel and series.
It is, internally,
and by necessity also externally,
a test of selfhood, an establishment,
of the empty self by emptying
or the invaded self
by remaining unbreached.
Both a signal and a symptom
of singularity,
and if not, of secondarily
another nature, of another sort
of another self.