Mechanics love their machines.
Repairing the damaged
Listening
Cleaning the trodden
Protecting the worn
They find a quiet, amniotic space within the cab
Underneath a machine, they are invisible
Inside a machine, they are invincible.
Machines love their mechanics.
Repairing the damaged
Listening
Cleaning the trodden
Protecting the worn
They take shelter within their garages, homes, boxes
In the mechanic’s hands they hum,
Well oiled, contented.
Below the blathering is another collection of little poems which didn’t make the cut as standalones, but which I liked too much to delete entirely.
I haven’t been the most reliable at posting this week! Without work as an anchor, my whole routine is thrown. I’m probably going to be sporadic for the rest of the month until all my vacation time is spent. I am doing my best to learn how to be reliable even when not working. So far this week I’m doing better than I did over my last vacation, when I just gave up on posting entirely. I consider this week’s three posts to be progress!
I wish
I wish
I wish I knew
What it is the good girls do.
I may not be much
But whatever I have
I have a lot of.
To find happiness
To find creativity
To fulfill my purpose
To work towards a goal
To improve
To relax
To be still
To accept
To deny
To take
To give
To have time for everyone
To use time efficiently
To be human
Push and pull
To be two
Hellscape
I’m just not feeling very dark today.
I hear a cricket
I see the pond at night
I feel the cool autumn air
I can breathe.
I want a lit cigarette
To take a drag
In drag
To bat my long false eyelashes
At some poor stud
And confuse the hell out of him
Until he doesn’t know
Which way his dick should be pointing.
I like the look of death
I want to lick death’s cheek.
But I’d miss
Because he has no cheeks.
Marble veined skin
Veins of marble
Skin of veins
Don’t kiss me
You
Are
Disgusting.
I am a planet
I drift
I follow the pull of gravity
I watch the worlds dance
I watch myself dance with them
Somehow we always miss each other
We never collide
Neither do we touch
My nose is clogged, my tonsils swole, and then
You tell me I should get back up again
I want to rest, my bed is safe and warm
But no one has the patience for my smarm
Get back to work, get up, get out, go on!
I hear you and I wish you weren’t born.
My only regret is,
If I take care of my health,
I may never have a prosthetic
With which to scare small children.
I got to play on an obstacle course
I didn’t have courage for half of the things
And wasn’t physically capable of the other half
I felt very large and heavy
I think if there’d been more adults on it
I wouldn’t have felt so silly
And maybe would have tried harder
I urged my sister
“Climb the 10 foot warped wall, for women everywhere!”
She looked at me funny.
Wondering if I’d said something sexist,
I revised my statement
“I mean… just for me, right here.”
I wanted her to do it
(I’m certain she could)
Because I was incapable
And I’ve spent my life feeling athletic
Vicariously through her.
Feeling large
And barge-y
Stomping around on my giant feet
I have grace
For one my weight
But no one else here is like me
The kids are swift, slender elves
My sister is strong and light
She is bamboo
She is tendons veins gristle
She is elegant cheekbones and arched brows
And blessed melanin, actual eyelashes, tanning skin
She slips through anything
She climbs like a rat
She swings like a monkey
Here I sit, here I sit
Pores full of shit
Not fit
Just the same I tried to flip
And hit the trampoline
Like a thrown elephant.
WHAM!
A man quickly approaches me
“You did sign the waiver, right?”
I’ve been taking time off work and clearing out my back room, previously the place for crap, soon to be reborn as a cute office. Looks like I’m not so good at the updating when my schedule breaks down. But I’ll learn how to keep up… eventually…
Cleaning up my room
Eliminating excess
Why does it feel so good
To get rid of stuff
And why do so many people not feel the same way?
Here is an item
Every time I saw it
I thought how ugly it was
A relief to not have it polluting my sight.
This thing
Itchy, uncomfortable
Thank God it’s being given away.
And here
A depressing reminder of abandoned ambitions
There
Grief-inducing mementos of lost loved ones
Old magazines? Guess what? I’m off the hook
I don’t have to read them.
They’re full of garbage and I can live without that data in my head.
I’m never using this warranty
I don’t like that photo
This drawing always bothered me
Who am I keeping it for? Posterity?
Nobody gives a shit about this shit painting.
I shouldn’t curse the future with such light-lacking things.
Nobody wants my garbage
Even I don’t want it.
How can anyone delight in having so much stuff?
They fill their houses with it
They get bigger houses so they can make room for more stuff
They are afraid to part with a single item
And if they do
They don’t forget about it
They really regret it forever.
Perhaps they are so beholden to their own identities
So shackled by the past
They cannot release a single newspaper.
The thing that makes me feel so free
Makes them feel unstable, lost
Freedom is instability
I suppose they can’t handle freedom
Because they have no faith in their own ability to handle it.
I don’t know much about hoarding
I’m a reverse hoarder
I’m a minimalist.
But I have a strong support network
And I have confidence
And I am lucky to not have
Such consuming fears.
Sparrow sings, happy
Solid stream, frozen insects
Spring sun forgotten
Sarah D. Silvey 