In scratching the surface suggestion
seeking out a picture,
a glimmering impression of what has passed.
Through the dirt, rumor and broken glass,
the shards of a half-formed story
could be grasped and pieced together
until momentum would collapse the edges
into jagged gaps that
set streams to bleed over wrists in motion.
There’s always a diversion to twist the truth,
new evidence to lift, to unburden the proof.
There’s the sneaking suspicion
that no more is known now than when first ushered in
to the forbidden forest of what is lost.
In scratching the scars over the memory’s repression
the traumatic depression
of rock fall or article,
the writing on the wall
that is a faded scrawl
in the downward spiral towards oblivion.
To comprehend the texture of this revision
requires one’s own muddied thoughts
to be tracked through here again and again.
Confronting the silence between lines,
between the tied up chimes
and pictures in a collective mind.
There’s a conscious untying of the strings
to hear the wind sing
like birds above the oppressive ceiling of forgetting.
The claustrophobic wringing of this fine thread
leads to a dead end
where dried up palms
sound like snake rattles disturbing the calm
of surface waters with phantom paddles.
The cacophony of singing shells
in the shadow of the Pali dwells
from cool heights where they fell
to twist and unravel over a concrete
that knows neither streetlight nor renewal,
only decay in the memory of its evil,
imprinted like tire tracks,
degraded in overgrown cul de sacs.
Imagining the outlines
while the jungle assigns a new border,
a derelict gate to mark the edge of this haunted quarter
where everything unfolds in the fog of half-truths and disorder.
Bit by bit, each detail is fed to the collective fire,
like reams in a typewriter,
the legend has been tapped into the consciousness of the whole.
The rain comes in sheets
to prompt this release,
to dab at the wounds and proceed
even gently
past the banyan sentry
who seems to guard access to the heart of this mystery,
that secret source that will inspire
one more ripple in the rendering
of a story that knows neither beginning nor ending.
yakskinpocketnotes 