Classic Michael Appleby

I apologize for the silence on my part. I've been switched to day shifts for a little bit here and it's been difficult, to say the least, adjusting to being a daytime kind of guy. Naturally, I'm tired as hell. Anyway, since many of you out there probably aren't too familiar with some of my older poetic works I thought that maybe once in a while when I'm too lazy to come up with new material I would just give you what is ultimately a rerun for me. Seriously, though, I will get back to normal here before long. More night shifts start at the end of the week. In the meantime, though, come down to Yianni's Taverna on Wednesday night to check out the latest from the Raving Poets. For now enjoy "Fists For The Uncreator," a piece I wrote back in 2002.

Fists For The Uncreator
this fleeting bit of cosmic debris could come all apart at any moment.

could crack. a fissure, a widening canyon beneath the morning sky. sun glaring off the shiny bits of glass of the skyscrapers’ tears. families, once huddled, arms locked over their numbers, reduced to single temporary entities where the ripping was too intense. the falling stars dripping into the chasms, all infinity being sucked in. a huge inverted light, a vacuum at the top of a rabbit hole pulling you up and out and your scream is drowned by agriculture, flocks of sheep, herds of cows, instant carnivorous fantasies, fields of prime rib, green grass painted red before a bite and a swallow, mother nature working toward indigestion. a chorus of car crashes. freight train smash. giant forests now kindling and splinters; forests of severed toothpicks. island nations everywhere.

could melt. urban candles, skyscrapers sinking slowly from the long burn. bridges that spanned now merge, all sense of defiance against water lost. aggressive morning dew on the lawn that didn’t know a limit to ambition -- and won. the sense of touch that became fuzzy then gooey until no sense was left at all. when the lovers grope each other they press that much harder with each passing moment, losing nerve endings inch-by-inch, whole bones disappearing into liquidity, they are forlorn, longing to lust, now forgetting that sex even existed. a wet consummation, oceans growing with the pouring of highways into the horizon. a drought that became a bay slowly and now a sea endlessly, dark tides that sway with the seeping moon overhead, lunar viscosity with a dissipating gravity until all waves are the thrashing of our elements changing.

could explode. a chorus of inflated shopping bags all popped at once, millions of oxygen molecules set free in one fell swoop, rushing toward the atmosphere. tanker trucks as grenades with 18 wheels; the pins’ pulled; the times’ waning; all become sources of shrapnel. You might be hitching a ride alongside a trucker and boom you join an overstatement of all existence, vast universes turning into powder kegs, sudden and painless, one big burst. skeletons leaping out of their bodies before that instant orgasm into endlessness, a restlessness that went too far, too fast, became fire and oxygen, a second-long incendiary before dust and big black burns on a sheet of time. vehicles along roadways as firecrackers, a divine fuse cut short, illuminated.

could disintegrate into dust. the death’s wind catching a sail and blowing right through it, a momentary mist of canvas blues and reds on the gust before the whole boat is fiberglass particles swirling faster than it has ever sailed before. evaporated milk, evaporated land, evaporated water, the level of the world low and flat getting flatter, whole utah harems joining their salt lake on air currents. the scents of baked goods are the actual baked goods in easy-to-consume forms. no fear of smoking. the ash tip becomes the ash cigarette becomes the ash smoker becomes the ash smoker’s shoes, becomes ash everything, a kiss for the omniscient, powdered war paint on the face of god.

the route to here forgetting itself for you until you want only to lie on your belly limbs outstretched as far as they can reach with fistfuls of dust handfuls of dirt clutching holding everything together if only where you are.

the route to here forgetting itself for me until I want only to punch at nothingness, swing, crazy, mad, with fists for the uncreator, knock the belligerent down, though he is a higher power than me.

kiss you. it seems appropriate at the end, a lasting token for the last, my coin for charon, a toll for the lethe.