Joseph Farley

The truth was just outside the cave.
That’s what we were told,
but none was brave enough to check.
So we stayed in the dark with the shadows,
silhouettes and shapes mistaken for much more,
enough for the majority on most nights.
Only when too much has happened
can we find the strength to stare down that tunnel
searching for the light of better days.

Let the walls tumble
and the horns sound.
There’s money to be made
from all that rubble.
Removal, repair, reconstruction.
Jobs. Jobs. Jobs.
Hold back not your valor.
Your economy needs you.
Fight as though your wallet
depends on it.

I won’t give you
the satisfaction
of tasting my blood.
I will drink it all,

not leaving
a single drop
for you to lick
from the floor.

At the end
there’s nothing I can say.
No soliloquy
would fit
well in a room
with tubes and machines
that go ping.

Try not to read
too much
into final moments.
Who really stays
to watch the credits
anyway.

I’m not important.
I know that.
But I like to pretend
that I am.
It makes my legs flow
easier into my trousers.
I walk bolder, more upright,
not quite a king
or even a duke,
just a peasant with swagger
and knives in his eyes.

All the things inside me
real or imagined
only exist as
chemical charges
bouncing along
tangles of neurons

while outside the sun
burns in distant space
and birds flock
into my garden
on this rainy day
snatching what they believe

will sustain them
as I search
inside and out
for manna flowing
from the fingers
of trees.

editors note: We snatch what we can catch; before heaven snatches it back. – mh clay

No, the mountain will not crumble
If you stare it down.
No, the sky will not change
To a shade of green
Because your palette calls for it.
This is where you are.
The scenery is your life.
If there’s a story to this,
You’re in it,
Maybe not the lead,
Maybe just an extra,
A face along the way.
Where? I don’t know.
I didn’t get a copy of the script.
Did you?

You cannot look at the flowers.
The sunrise is off limits.
The list will grow tomorrow.

The mask you wear is no longer sufficient.
Blinders and a gag must be fashioned to fit.
Sit on your hands and talk to no one.

Pretend you do not exist.
The rest of us will do the same,
Pretending you are not there

Until you take the hint,
and disappear.
Hurry up. We’re waiting.

black swallows fly across yellow sky,
morning maybe, or setting sun.
the world seems so small,
no bigger than a postcard.
you feel you could reach out and take
the whole scene in your hand
and carry it away in your pocket,
but all you have is your eyes
and mind and memory and two swallows
flying across a yellow sky.

The heart wants what it wants
And the cock longs
For what it desires.

The subject is not always
The same,
Though it might
Overlap.

Great if it does,
If not, trouble,
For the heart must have
And so must the worm.