"Quit playing Call of Duty, quit wasting your stupid life! I’m hitting up the streets with Jeff, about to print my ticket and other plane-related shit, and upon returning I shall tell you about the worst emotional mugging of my lifetime."
So goes the dial-tone
echoing like a foghorn
in the throat of the cave
over his sheets
my paperwork is ready
I got what I wanted
trapped inside
an hourglass
out my ear,
into my hands trembling wired I can’t feel
the cold cradling
my baby breath
giving up has never been so sure of a thing
grant me the words to cross over countries
and the grace to lose what is already lost
for I’ve never felt so displaced as I do now
give me the luck to stumble into accidents
that might set me onto a wholly new scent
echoing like a foghorn
in the throat of the cave
there’s not much else to hear
taxis drive by cross-eyed
I steal another cigarette
from Jeff, who is sprawled
over his sheets
my paperwork is ready
I have nowhere urgent
to be I only
wanted to hear your voice
I got what I wanted
trapped inside
an hourglass
cracked and sand
now spilling
out my ear,
into my hands trembling wired I can’t feel
the cold cradling
my baby breath
giving up has never been so sure of a thing
grant me the words to cross over countries
and the grace to lose what is already lost
for I’ve never felt so displaced as I do now
give me the luck to stumble into accidents
that might set me onto a wholly new scent
so goes the prayer
of the failure
Mmm, love love love this one. The setup on the page is visually pleasing, and the separation is well placed, I like the horizontal trailing down the page. You seem to have captured this sort of tense moment of self reflection in the presence of another, more distracted person. Beautiful, poetic language in this poem. Cold cradling my baby breath, the dial-tone echoing like a fog horn, great. And the last two stanzas, all wrapped up neatly at the end yet still separate from each other, I love it.
ReplyDeleteI think my favorite part is "the grace to lose what is already lost for I've never felt so displaced as I do now". Succinct ending in "so goes the prayer of the failure"... Kaleb, this is a great poem.
My only complaint is the first line of the second to last stanza "giving up has never been so sure of a thing" ... "of a thing" just doesn't fit the rest of the beautiful language you use here, and it doesn't seem to keep the flow of the rest of the language here. I know it's your poem, but maybe something like "giving up, I've never been so sure of anything".