“I want to write something of my own, and for it to seem like I have quoted one of the greats. I want to turn the heads of all the casual readers and those that I can no longer just assume will love me.  I want to turn your understanding upside down, to tilt your head to the side in a distracted thought that tumbles into an avalanche.”

the competitors

this is not a race
to see whose collection is bigger
more prescient     more relevant
more refined

although we rush
to gather our choice of memories
or inspirations   recollections
like burning rubber hoses and bubbling fluids

or like the cozy lazy tears at body temperature
that saturate the skin then cool as they evaporate
 

or like the cold that rushes into the spaces between two bodies
as they separate from a long embrace    the smell of skin mostly
permanent   the smell of hair that fades

or even like the redness of a thousand rooftops that fades as seen from a picture window at the peak of a high hill only to be replaced by a few thousand white lights from distant windows and porches and headlights and red lights of brakes and traffic signals and orange lights of do not walk do not cross wait and streams of colors that surround the edges of sight against the milky blueblack sky of dark silent clouds

this is more of a downhill tumble
one whose swath is more defined
by the piles of trash
that run like horrible giant walls

fading in and out of recognition
of attention   or of even being noticed at all

i think we are the collectors
and then the guardians of all of that
our giant piles plowed through
with the feeble bandwidth
of our revelations