A Prayer

A prayer with every puff. One, two, three, and the words
have been heard, by the unknown around.
Walk the life and count each small foot step,
discovering a path already laid out.
 Constructed by your former self.
Made alive by the music that escapes
from windows across this land.
We can’t fly so we pound our feet into the soil,
and leave footprints in the hope that something of ourselves
remains alive even after we fall.

Crushed leaves, flat bugs, and broken branches
constantly follow our trails.
These aren’t winds around but the coughs
of all babies worldwide.
An uproarious laugh builds earthquakes
and sneezes throw out hurricanes and tornados.
 Step one, step two. Pass your feet through the cemeteries
shaved grass and decorations.
Small American flags, little windmills, crooked flowers,
and beer bottles lay, half dead, atop the cement slabs.
Dirt cakes the names and dates of a dead mans body.
Prayers slip from the ears and drip slowly into
the palms of my hands.

A prayer with every puff.
Lay kisses on the ground and watch them dissolve
and cry good bye.
The foundation isn’t stable and the bones are dancing
to the music of the birds.
Those curious onlookers, those treacherous stalkers.
I say nothing that I haven’t said before,
and my natural instinct takes over.
The hills can’t watch so I turn my back to them.
Cover myself with an umbrella painted yellow,
just to mirror the sun.
I wink at the slit of clouds and proceed to bury my soul underneath the dirt,
digging underground tunnels that lead in circles,
and crisscross over miles upon miles of useless rocks
and boulders and granite deposits.

Reemerge myself unto the dust of stars and take the lasso
that dangles from my hip, twirl it five times for the cause and laugh
as I miss the closest object next to me.
A captured idea without definite action, a scared attempt without
proving myself wrong.
These hands of glass could never hold a conversation,
let alone the life of another.
So I reside with the ones who once existed and sneak in the street
when lights pop on and people hide in their homes.
I wrap myself in doubt and thick jackets so my obscure appearance
can make a little sense.
The energy in the body only believes it self to be alive
because that is what I have told myself.
Everyday reinforcing I,
only to eventually meet death who will reiterate Die.
Pour water into the cracked glass and
reminisce about the tattoo my grandfather had.
These bottles don’t call my name any more and the more years I receive
the more young they appear.
Melancholy moods can’t wash away
the superiority complex or supremacy that lives inside.

Grass stains on my pants and damp chemicals
seep slowly into my skin, my hands are frozen reminders of mortality,
and my lungs are two cradles where life first began.
Hide, hide, and hide. I cross my arms to keep warm and to receive a strange form
of human contact. I can go months.
Drawings scatter themselves in my books and on my walls,
their messages long gone.
Occasionally I remind myself why they are there but am so dissatisfied with the answer that I force myself to forget.
Time has engrained a blank stare onto my face,
every rising morning I must look at this solemn glare. I am scared to see
who will stare back at me.
A disfigured fool, an old unwise man,
brought to be ignorant in these days
Of complete boredom.
Love hates my stature of discontent and I wear the face
of a traveler without any plans.
Stomping from bed to bed, Mirror to mirror, Always changing
yet the look never diminishes.

These cypress trees poke themselves out like the hairs of a giant
and only sway when they feel it right.
I dig my fingernails into the dirt and listen closely to the trembling earth.
Worried that someday the skeletons that I converse with will want to pull me
into their homes, wine and dine me, and force into servitude.
But I am protected with a prayer for every puff, and a gospel for every blink,
and a stranger in the dusty lights will disappear only when all those around
don’t recognize his existence.
So count the foot steps and divide it by days lost, square root the answer and times it by the number of sleepless nights.
Mortality is a calculator running out of batteries soon enough