right hand in memory
wet, warm and dripping
with the red, red clay
we shaped with sore and suffering fingers

(sanguine still
my fingers and palms
as yours are and ever were.
children still,
we were then and ever will be
innocent and wise
shaping little dreams
in red, red clay)

squeezing and pulling
red masks, red flowers,
red, red daggers
shaping and scribbling
red, red poems
till the clay beneath our feet
dried and cracked
and crumbled

(sanguine still
our fingers and palms
as they were and ever will be.
children still
as we were and ever will be
slowly cutting
slowly carving
clay shaped with sore and suffering fingers)

we return
only to find
unfamiliar shapes
sinking in the clay
little dreams we left behind
slowly losing their shape
drying and cracking,
ever crumbling

and finally i've found the strength to admit that this is the way it will be, this is the way i will accept this new suffering. but i'm still scratching the red, red clay from underneath my fingernails, swelling and bleeding with this new suffering. trying to find clean again, trying to find clean again...

01/08/2003

Author's Note: Counting beads. How long have I been doing this? How much longer can I (and should I) keep it up? And is it ever truly safe to say good-bye to memory? How much longer can the me I know survive? Sometimes I feel like a paleontologist-dinosaur: if it weren't for my own foot-prints hardened in the clay I wouldn't know of my own existence. There's more to this. That line from the movie se7en keeps repeating in my head: is there any part of your body that you'd be willing to sacrifice? Is there any part of me that I'd be willing to sacrifice? And exactly what would be left after that pyre burnt itself out? I contemplate this as my brother rots in a jail cell. My childhood friends are all gone. I can smell suffering around me like rotten meat piled high. And where am I? Where am I indeed... This breaches the gap between (the abacist) and (eden).

Posted on 01/08/2003
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