In this parade of charades
you are but lighting and shade
in a never ending guessing game.
Who can we portray to you
to make you believe what we say?
Woven symbols of a narrative
we so meticulously orchestrate,
What is a name? What is a face?
Everything we say will never be erased.
Press the spine and watch us break.
A fictive biography of would be histories.
Superficial symphonies sang in the key of Me.
An opus higher than an opiate;
push the needle in and watch it bleed.
In a measure sung by a pack of liars
can one voice ever be louder than a choir?
All conjured illusions interlinked,
A spider web of mirror deja vu.
Woven so tightly,
lest we all be crushed by the weight of truth.
You’ve so many faces,
I never know which one is you.
Have we ever truly met, my friend?
In a world where reality shifts and bends
I fear we have lost sight
of where the stage ends.
Cover your ears,
we can still pretend.
– I. G A L L O W S
Of Bones and Blood
It’s not enough.
It’s never enough.
A brilliant star collapsed inside my gut
and it’s a hole that since
has never shut.
It takes,
it breaks,
and it unmakes
in a fever of bones and blood–
and even though I know,
I know,
I cannot endure this storm alone.
As if pain were a tree you diligently water,
for the shade of its branches
has been all you’ve known of shelter.
– I. G A L L O W S
November 3rd, 2016
Gardener
I swore once
that there was a magic in desire
that could give flight to creatures born without wings.
I levitated on this feeling once.
But butterflies are all but a forgotten memory.
Remind me.
Please.
For all I have are dreams of what has yet to be;
for that is all I will let be.
Here, amidst the soil of this savage garden,
I have come to fear the thorns of every flower
from the times that I have bled,
yet still–
I am intoxicated by the scent.
And this love would bloom if only I would fetch the water,
But I am not a gardener.
– I. G A L L O W S
July 15th, 2012