Caught Between a Jerk and a Hard Place

"We're not puzzle pieces."

The thought sticks in a way that nothing has been lately
or that most things have been, it's hard to say,
by which I mean hard to tell the difference.
Maybe the thought is the only thing that hasn't stuck-
jarred itself between these rocks and an easy place

maybe the thought doesn't have a home

That's what the thought is about, really
the idea that nobody fits anywhere
even when forced together in the tiniest rooms and booths.
We can't cheat ourselves by sawing down corners or hollowing
out the flat parts to receive.
We can't force a connection.

We don't have a greater guide to follow, no matter how
we combine we won't form the picture intended

there is no intended picture, don't flip us over
we're not cardboard, god dammit we're not cardboard

falling coffin bones

We lay eachother down to remember climbing, and standing still we think to run.
We lay down and we're inexpiable on our craytons
And when we crawl up, we crawl up like Smilax, pre-emptively saving what was
from what could turn skeletal.
A necropolis, Indurative, and monochord.
So skyward we rear. Dog-clutched and clubfooted like sawhorses,
wishing for days without half-steps, days without lameness and sore joints
Wishing to be sound like nocturn,lenitive, and visionary,
Given to daydreams set in motion.

Sway

Shame these unfamiliar turnings
and this hunger in the body

shame the writing on the walls
of this which we have leased
and must return

must have returned

a personal debt is owed
paid in pounds of flesh
in pounds and pounds and pounds of flesh

wherein we house an ironic sense of hunger

detachment, accomplishment and envy

gimme shelter, gimme shelter
gimme a sign in the guts that love was once there

oh god, i'm so sorry
painted on bricks
oh god, i'm so sorry
carved in wooden hearts
oh god i'm so sorry
written all over our faces

shame these signs of times
who show not love or it's absence
shame these signs
these hunger pangs.