Posted by Atticus on September 14, 2004, at 21:04:04
Bracelets of Torn Thoughts
Red sky’s raining brains,
Juicy gobbets of cortex,
An abattoir downpour
Of quivering pink and gray pudding,
Striking the pavement
Of my skull’s
Slick and solid inner surface
With succulent wet sounds
Like hot fistfuls
Of steaming raw meat
Hurled by indifferent
Slaughterhouse workers
As they plunge their arms
Up to their elbows
In cerebellum entrails,
Then bend to the task
Of mental disembowelment,
Their fingers digging
And
Their limbs swinging
In a spontaneous display
Of meat-hook choreography
As piece
By piece,
They claw at the shredded
Remnants of my mind.Pulsing strands
Of throbbing neurons
Dangle like gristle
From the crew’s meaty wrists,
Still wriggling
Like
Slender pale worms,
Writhing cat’s cradle tangles,
Bracelets of torn thoughts
Losing their coherence
As they probe
Feebly,
Futilely
For synaptic companionship,
A brotherhood
Of shared knowledge,
Of shared memories,
Of shared comprehension
That now lies splattered
Below them
In ankle-deep drifts
Of still-shrieking
Conscious meat
And in slowly swirling pools
Of weeping briny yellow fluids
That flow
Around the coarse leather
Of their tormentors’ work boots.Purplish bolts of chemical lightning
Erupt chaotically
Here and there
Amid the twitching
Slivers
Of dripping intellectual guts,
Illuminating the impassive faces
Of the workers
With occasional
Sputtering flashes,
Brief flares of dazzling light
That sizzle,
Then go dark,
The fading sparks
Visible,
For an instant,
Through the lenses
Of my eyes.
And I can do little now
But wait
For this shift
To end,
For the workers to shed
Their leather aprons
And shuffle
Away,
Leaving this charnel house
With walls
And floors of bone
In utter darkness,
As I begin anew
The never-ending task
Of sifting
Through the carnage
To see
What I can salvage
Of myself.
-- Atticus
poster:Atticus
thread:390834
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20040828/msgs/390834.html