ripping r.i.p

I know it is what you’re supposed to say
the a.u.t.o.m.a.t.i.c.
traditional turkey dinner elbow
reflex defense up
against
truth of the end that
you must never remember
and hide behind
commercialized thankfulness
for forgotten (but living) brutality.
I know it’s what you say,
a polite “I’m breathing and you’re not”
but I command you to be quiet about it,
an abridged cordiality
maintaining but keeping
a distance from the throbbing thing:
If you wave and shield your eyes,
maybe your words won’t follow,
or maybe they’ll latch and loom
and mimic
a silhouette of fleeing life
and puppet strings-
deluded
forward digression
driving toward
a point A
disguised as point B.

lullaby

Good night shoes,
you’ve taken me as far as my ambition,
heels bleeding and laces wild and muddy,
I’m taking a break.
Goodbye voice,
you’ve ran too far today,
There is no retracting your steps,
I’ve interrupted you with hurdles of hoarse frustration
and hiccups of repressed sobs,
You’ve done beautifully-
but it’s time.
Good riddance hands,
you’re freckly and I hate you,
you grasp nothing and you permit everything important to
slither between your stubby fingers
(p.s. fingers, I hate you too).
Good-luck legs lifting the shell of what
used to be loftily above you,
slumped and mute to your choreographic
demands.
Good for you, eyes, blind to the destruction,
ignorant but not blissful-
forced to see ahead to what the rest will never reach.