machine:working title/I Am
prose poem and sound experiment
Run me through the machine, anthropogenic hex:
replace with desire, erase with sex, analytics of breath
and the memory of the divine imperfectly
present and perfectly fine.
This is perpetual obituary for statuary in the
statutory throes of barbiturate purgatory, this is
agony and ecstasy, when everything connects to me,
sex to me is next to me, inside of me is empty.
Falling in a pattern of matters and missed, the
best of the list of the worst of the kissed
is never the most of the least of the dread
when everyone shudders and nothing is said.
Insert me in the system, count them up and list them–
make it like a sacred thing, fake it
while you break it in, take your win, miss again,
count to ten, breathe again. Listen:
Nothing here is in you, in order to begin, do
everything in opposite, wait a bit, stop. Is it
coming still? Running will
free you from the chase but it will keep you in the race.
Now I am a cipher, involuntary lifer in a cycle
of denial with a trial I can die for, with a smile
I will try for. Take me out and dry me. Why me?
Fly free. Poverty a panoply, anarchy a peace.
New Orleans, Jan/Feb 2022
~Steve Spehar
