Spit
Ryan Emmert
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
— TS Eliot
I spit a few words:
the way I hate, stubborn,
arrogant, full of hot air,
sick pleasure. This much
I know: I am a fool
stumbling around, searching
for an empty pedestal,
Whatever is real, however,
lingers — cloud prosperity,
thinking otherwise,
in the head, in which the angel
roams, waving hair and
gold chains behind,
laughing like a fish.
In the courtyard,
a few friends gather,
smoke and laughter,
lines between them,
and we trip in the ghetto
street’s belly,
along a southbound Highway
nailed together by a
white dotted line.
Voice full blast in the
foliage of breath, the climax
of fate, of a flowering sky —
he is quiet, he wants to cry.
Until this much,
and this much brings comfort:
world growth, and the aging
of the old and the happy.
This is how it became,
in a matter of however many
scary moments.
I stand in a shallow pool
of withering drab, an effigy of
fear, letting birds come and go;