Beyond belief

It's a black sky, with clouds gathering in stacks
to tell you which mood you should be in,
to lift your eyes to the news that the thing
you always thought was unimaginable
was never too far out of sight, after all.
And there the buzzards wisely circle,
tearing the empty meat off the bone
bit by bloody bit, until the truth is laid bare -
a gleaming, sharpened taunt - perfection
amid the rot beneath the devil's sun.
Nothing escapable here. Just the inevitable
drawl of a clock's weakening movements,
the pace that it has kept for the better part
of a century, loud and reliable, slowly waning
to its final, barely audible tick, tock, tick.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
The Black Keys, The Only One

Skyscraping

The dull jazz horns of the city
blare out like a sudden scream,
captivating and violent,
cascading off the wind-dulled walls
of the fading neon facade.
The sharp fragments of sound
that finally meet my ears
are still biting, a cruel reminder
of the things I left behind there,
chances I never had the nerve to take
and voices mine could never match.
If, one day, I'm able to return,
I can only hope that the streets
still vibrate with that same energy,
a color so persuasive and imminent
as to never let you be still.
Then, maybe, I'll find the impulse
to do something I'd soon regret.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Fionn Regan & The Staves, North Star Lover

This is why the seats face backward

painting by Linden Frederick

The hail falls faster than your parents can drive to escape it, clanking angrily against the roof like a teenager’s first drum solo. The road is tinted yellow beneath the clouds and the warming twilight, and it falls into the blackness as we round each turn on a desperate, careening road home. I feel your fingers start to slacken as the looming dusk is preceded by a glimpse of roaring orange, peering through a crack in the sky. We’ll sit in each others arms until the brake lights go steady, pour out red the color of an entire world’s lost passion and, ultimately, go dark.

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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Sarah Jarosz, My Muse