haiku (failed)
The thin thread that hold us here, tethered / or maybe tied, together,
what / do you call it-telephone? horizon? song? Listen / to yourself
sing, We are all god's children / we are all gods,
we walk the earth /
sometimes, two sails inside us sometimes / beating, our bodies the
bottle, a ship inside
each / until one day, for no reason, it sails-
hello? / damn phone-until one day it sails / out of sight, until
one
day it cuts out of / earshot, bye-bye muttered into your cupped palm,
bye-bye / boat, bye-bye rain-Look
/ maybe this is the place we've been /
waiting for, maybe this place / is the day, inside us, inside each /
corpuscle, the day, that day, everyday is / inside, my body, your body,
everyday is / this thread, everyday
you said, come / get me, everyday
you said, it's been way too long / you said, bye-bye, bye-bye, not a day /
went
by, the thin, the thread, so thin, this thread, are you still / here,
is it still, your heart, is it well /
well welling?
greetings, friend (minotaur)
O heart weighed down by so many wings / isn't it time to admit / we are
more machinery than gods / that our house is more maze than temple, that contrary / to popular mechanics we cannot,
anytime / simply change the channel. Basho / year after year, saw on the monkey's face / a monkey face. Here we
are, friend, year out / year in, in our bodies, inside then, seemingly, everything / as promised, ten percent off.
You say / the family car was always warming up. You say / wasn't there a tv show about a minotaur?
You say / O heart weighed down by so many wings, where / is my monkey mask now?
-from The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands
Listen to Nick Flynn read here