DOUBLE NEGATIVE
let me know what you end up being born to do
if it’s worthwhile
if it’s noble
if it suits you
because if it doesn’t,
if it’s not,
then it might matter more
and we were really just testing you the whole time
to see how you’d react –
in anger or with grace,
like a fire or like the wind,
and you surprised us all
with your behavior
in spite of our efforts
and controls
and implemented criteria.
you, a godsend,
you disproved our theorem,
you startled nature,
you are a free being,
banishing doubt and suspicion
in favor of turbulent glory,
undulating possibilities,
wide expanses
and dark tunnels.
like a crack in a windshield
or a geyser or anthill,
there’s a small stream of passing,
a hiss of air,
a spray of water,
and these particles are the brave explorers,
breaching the boundaries of containment and tradition,
spurting out revolution
and a stray spray steers
awry
and catches you in the eye,
that smarts, you say.
it might appear in the form of a tightly packed bundle,
with a space inside,
only there’s no evidence of the space,
you just intuit that it’s in there
and it feels to you like a funny feeling
resembling faith maybe?
but no,
this is knowledge,
you know the emptiness is there.
it sings to you,
hiding inside everyday objects,
making them hollow.
and now, having fallen terribly behind
and trying to catch up with the others,
you call out in retaliation,
a war cry,
why don’t YOU come find ME?
and you plop down on the spot,
not giving up,
not giving in,
but giving something
and taking even more
in this game of exchange
that we all think we’re good at
but that no one can win.
whatever this day brings
will not be what I’m looking for
but I’m not trying to find it too hard,
so I’ll join today in its whims
and postpone my search
indefinitely
while the getting is good
and I’m ripe for distracting.
we’ll go hopping like rabbits
thru a made up occasion
and I’ll flip up my hat brim
to let all the sun in
and I’ll drink from a fountain
at the foot of a mountain
when I’m thirsty,
and we’ll celebrate anything
so long as it happened
and we all feel quite satisfied
with the outcome.
the situation is normal.
and while I don’t believe in believing in things,
I think it’d be best
if we assume it will happen anyways
because where’s the harm in that?
it’s no better
but no worse.
other times it will feel like
a stick thrown into a river
and all that you’re trying to do
is make sure that it doesn’t get lost
forever
so you follow it in
and as soon as you get wet
the rules all change
and you’re being sucked as if thru a straw
further from but closer to
and it’s been a long, long way
countless miles –
but you still won’t let it go,
won’t let it disappear
without you.
when that happens,
you can always call upon aid
or reject help entirely.
again, it depends on how hard you are trying to find whatever it is you’re after.
so, all things considered,
you’re just a train
crossing a rusty bridge
into a town of your own design
with a load of supplies
fit for all to enjoy
like a banquet of happiness
in a land w/ no shortage
and they’ve always had plenty
for as long as they’ve lived there
in brash isolation
with you as their mayor
to dictate with kindness
a brand new way of living
on the fringe of survival,
and with all your new tools
you’ll provide for the families,
make sure that there’s something
to promise the people,
and you chug into the station
bleating your steamhorn
as a signal of accomplishment.
what do you mean?
do I what?
I’m not sure I understand…
it took a lot of walking
thru forests to get here
and I haven’t seen enough yet
to determine whether or not
the walk was worth it,
but I’ve only yet begun my journey
and am willing to be wrong,
prepared to be amazed,
excited to try,
ready to see wonders,
ready to lead off,
take the first step
towards an awareness
of something fleeting,
something difficult,
something restless,
precarious,
multiple,
coy,
elusive,
that’s been asking around
about me
to everyone involved
for quite some time now,
and to some avail.
so tempting as they come,
these blank ships of happenstance
with the fullest possible sails,
full of hope,
yanking them in the direction of a home
they’ve never been to,
to women who are not their mothers,
like a daring ploy
on an idle landscape
free of dubious worry. at a plot of destruction
from a wizening fairy
comes a plea of no mercy
begging stoppage and tired
of unruly expansion
til a tip of a hint of
a clue takes its spot
in the secretive middle
of the solid conditions
that you feel like you know
for no discernible reason
other than it sounds like a good idea
to you, and to others,
and you should all probably go on ahead
with everything as expected
and quit running thru trainings
since the quiet is ending
and resistance is forming
in collapsible models
of perfect scale replicas
of your perfect town,
all painstakingly recreated
for your amusement,
as well as for ours,
but isn’t that beside the point?
or maybe not so much beside it
as in front of it,
blocking it from our view?
interrupting our looking?
it is one or the other.
during a dark dead moon
in the shade of the night time,
with a silent order
that we had to go ask for,
I’m left wondering
at just how much we’re talking here,
and I track the progress
of a range of motion
which your eyes undergo
over the course of your answer.
and the moment before you speak
is when I give up everything
and dissuade myself of compassion
while you sweep away
any remnants of sadness
in the way that is easy
and makes us both happy
for as long as we’re able,
because if it goes dropping
down a well of my fortune,
I could not comprehend
what collision entails.
the sum of all this is like a potluck of wonder,
of wondrous things,
bewildering things,
things that exhilarate out of either fear or just pleasure,
sheer excitement,
unadulterated,
like going fast
or overcoming danger,
or plummeting
into your own blue crevasse
and seeing a cavern filled with light
that has only existed twice –
once, for itself,
and secondly, for you.
what will you do then, in that secret room?
the one unspoiled by your careless mistakes
or your passive accidents,
the one that you happened in on,
caught naked, changing,
too naïve to guard itself from you.
how do you proceed?
do you have a plan?
will you wield your responsibility appropriately?
or will you misuse your advantage
and make things worse for the both of you
by pushing too hard
and breaking a bit off
which will spread a crack
to collapse the whole structure
in a display of apathy
that infects nearby villages
with a feral disease,
and in the heart of its being
is a dark desperation.
and in forming
it becomes denser,
like a cloud,
solid, but also liquid, but also gaseous,
a befuddling amalgam,
a strange juxtaposition
of elements
arranged just so,
and everyone gets to play a part
in this symbolic play,
in this church-like theater
to this jury-like audience
for our sacrilegious selves
on this mournful monday
with our dusty dismay
on our teetering truths
high on muscular mountains,
and colossal calamity
will befall our beethoven
who is crammed in a closet
with a moth for a mother
and a discounted doorknob
to the wonderful worldview
that leads out to the levee
under skies that are scrambled,
and the humorous heavens
who can’t tell what the time does
to our breathtaking bodies.
PUSH/PULL
done contesting arrangements
like a flower on a fish hook
or a kite in a tree.
to make it explicit,
one has got to cede to the other,
the other exert force.
for a tense afterthought,
my moonshoes flip a mention
of long, hot afternoons
from nowhere to everywhere.
I engage in their rapid succession.
my eyes cannot focus.
I’m caught in a tailspin
while flickering lightbulbs
illuminate harsh memories
in the dark of that office.
simplified and restated,
these visions lose none of their stupidity
or self-righteous intoxication
on the blood of my friendships.
with a wink and a whistle,
my forgetfulness vanishes
like a cheshire cat
that blends in w/ the trees.
KINDLING BURNS EASILY
kindling burns easily.
two mastiffs come charging up the rocky hill.
they horse around on their backs like alpine parrots.
they kick up a duststorm in their roughhousing.
they bite each other’s faces, but in a loving way.
old wood burns slowly.
BASTARD MOMENTS
it all comes clean in an absence of promises,
and relinquishing this articulation
will allow it to glide in moonlight
like a dark scepter,
to cleave iron statues in two
and free all the lost engineers.
when tempted by trying episodes to
abandon my lethal dejection,
I reverse course expertly
and convey my softest malignance
as my dainty steps
ease over the ashes
and the exposed copper,
which is growing like vines
from the guts of a spacecraft
which was not built to last.
and inside, my whimpering
muscles beg for lively
danger to an inexpressible
degree, annoying and persistent.
wilted beings wrapping around one another under orange light,
basking like lizards.
you like to sit and wait for it to get quiet
and watch everything from your perch.
I’d rather be in it, but
still as a spectator,
just participating too.
my view would be much better
and I crave the violence.
but I agree with you that
seeing it all unfold is a sweet satisfaction.
unbearably torn am I
between experience and reflection,
two irreconcilable poles
that tug at my insides
and bind me together
as this shape
I inhabit.
they can’t be done at once if done correctly,
but I’m guilty of giving birth to my fair share of bastard moments.
they can only exist thru me,
like a glue that keeps them
together.
I’m an accident,
a drag net,
a binding.
their finders run thru my body.
I am the structure of their impure habitation on earth.
we flap like wings towards vitality together.
Colin Ferguson 