WORD NEBULA

Copyright (c) 1994

by

Martin Grider
All rights reserved.

Martin Grider
2218-5th Street NE
Mpls. MN 55418
(612) 781-7245

Slowly I lunged at it's teeth
scattering myself amongst them.
Amethyst canines and emerald molars.
I ran for dear life, not my own,
hid in it's shroud,
keeping the clouds at bay,
breaking brittle sacrafices in vain attempts
of control, at control.
There was nothing left for me to say or do.
Somehow the end of eternity was summed up
in a fear I'd had as a child
and the children were all screaming,
their little heads exploding,
the first to go.
What a holocaust,
what a day for a holocaust.

A Scattering of Flowers

bend the birch bark back
bleeding sap
leveling the leviathon
cut up in strips
build a house
live in it
let it rot

Slow Roads

Slow roads, whose surfaces are cracked
and bricks can be seen
and are grey concrete color
rather than the fast black of
speedy asphalt.

Slow roads, who don't have painted boundries
but have a line of weeds
down the center instead,
telling you which side to drive on,
and not to pass where there is not room.

Yellow Lion

Squinting, I feel and see
in front of me the yellow
dandelion's roar.

Lifeless, yet the presence
shines in upon itself,
the cross I bear.

To each their own, savior.
Every present strand is a sermon,
the dead plant could be so symbolic.

I've found a fortune,
if only those people bearing hands over ears
could hear my inside thoughts.

To think, I wonder,
of all the little ant lives lost
by my laying in the sun...

How many have I stepped upon?
How would you look at it? Sacrificed?
I swear the dandelion's mane is brown
and dead.

breathing a cloud

I have inhaled
the cool, sweet dreams
of secondhand smoke,

like a dying fire's breath.

ƒ ƒ ƒ

smoldering ashes smart exhale.
hollow light that jumps

flicker me by,
flicker me by

a soft tendril,
weightless waif.

ƒ ƒ ƒ

there is a ghost.
spirit floating
through the tunnel of your lips

nesting gently in the air...

ƒ ƒ ƒ

like a yellow stain
or the smell of rotting vegetables

I have been disgusted, and romanced

by what you hang crudely
from greasy fingers.

the death screaming

here I am holding
the death screaming
someone flailing
myself it seems

postpone cremation
predestinary heaving
a fish gasping for water

try to find a heart unbeating
hold a soprano scream
until the glass breaks
take the sapphire beneath
open your chest
and eat it

Stillness

Slaves of ourselves.
I wish I could transcend
this emotional paradigm.
I wish that the earth would open for me
so that I could dive into magma,
tasting it on my tongue
burning my senses.

I can ring the earth,
look down at clouds
look down at myself
fleeing the deserted skyways
and too-crowded sideshows
which become called cities
in their distant circus.

I wash myself in salt water
purifying ragged skin,
drying nails in the sun,
rolling wet and naked in the sand,
hot and cold.
The clumps that fall as I dry
are my soul
becoming brittle.

the marine blue sky

If you have never understood the dance
that the night breeze makes
around your tears,
then it's time for you to learn
some secrets that the sun's companion
tries to keep tied to bed sheets
and soft pillows,
wandering secrets about
the walker by starlight,
the one whose hope
comes in buckets
from wishes and
the dreams where your eyes are open.
Because closing them never helps.

What a dream
day might have been
and night's wandering mayhem
a myriad of lights and corners,
faceless drunken men.

And a bright bus
with blue seats
whose contrast turns
to dark shiny streets
where the trees hold you to the sidewalk
and cover the marine blue sky.

The world is held together with wax.

The girl falls asleep
magic pulling her lids
into a bed of flower petals.
An empty body collapses.

The girl has come to live in a music box.
A smile turns her invisible.
Tickling spirits dance with her.
Her eyes are not solid.

We are liquid, the girl and I
flowing together as cascading rivers,
drifting as maniacal sea,
falling as rain.
The sun dries us into dirt,
dust as on an open book
packed under tons of earth
and flowing again as hot magma.

The girl is awake,
her smile like a smell when dreaming,
her eyes solidified candle flames,
the wax of which holds the world together.

Waiting to be Saved

I need the time to let myself die slowly
just a short place of worship.
If I walk west, the sun will wrap around me.
Quiet bullies me into a corner.
You live and I wind down.

hours are spent passing
crawling around in square circles
like in M.C.Escher's paintings
dressed in a red tuxedo
dancing slowly in rhymes

Every other presentation
passes like a brick through water.
These words of one who does not speak
stick to me like black tar.

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