Dirt, Worship, Plague, Far

The incessant plague sound of the power
washer: combustion felt reverberating
from my heart, travelling down the road
of my arms into the radius and ulna,
to pisiform, triquetrum, lunate, and scaphoid,
to hamate, capitate, trapezoid,
trapezium, and then on through and on
this violence passed through from generation
to generation.

A deer, its whisper feet passed
poundless through the cacophony
and I, this collection of violence
and nuance went unnoticed.

I felt the engine die
and the engine died
of its own accord.

The people far away
did not care I had been power-
washing the paths and walkways
and tying to make new the through-ways
or how much the muscles encased
in my forearms hurt
and my fingers were beginning to fail.

But the deer engaged in worship
with simple eating of the cut grass
and simple breathing of the cut air,
a near perfect worship; she did not notice
the people I incessantly notice
carrying their weight even
as I clean the dirt of through-ways
blasting it away to somewhere else
but it never leaves.

If only someone could make it go away
and let the deer wonder.


Note: 3rd draft written on October 23, 2018. Originally written on June 17, 2018. 2nd draft written on October 15, 2018. With major changes made to the first stanza and minor changes made to spacing and layout.


The incessant plague sound
of combustion felt reverberating
from the heart to the radius and ulna,
to pisiform, triquetrum, lunate, and scaphoid,
to hamate, capitate, trapezoid,
trapezium, and then on through and on
this violence passed through from generation
to generation.

Thus went the cacophony as a deer,
its whisper feet passed poundless through
and I, this collection of violence
and nuance went unnoticed
and I felt the engine die
and the engine died
of its own accord
and the people
far away
did not care I had been power-
washing the paths and walkways
and tying to make new the through-ways
or how much the muscles encased
in my forearms hurt
and my fingers were beginning to fail

but the deer engaged in worship
with simple eating of the cut grass
and breathing, a near perfect worship;
she did not notice
the people I incessantly notice
carrying their weight even
as I clean the dirt of through-ways
blasting it away to somewhere else
but it never leaves.

If only someone could make it go away
and let the deer wonder.


Note: Originally published on 6/17/18 with only minor edits made here.