Thursday, November 22, 2012

my reptilian brain (beware the buffalo): anniversary of my sorrow


my reptilian brain (beware the buffalo): anniversary of my sorrow

I know you think that I shouldn't still love you,
Or tell you that.
But if I didn't say it, well, I'd still have felt it.
Where's the sense in that?


your presence sates my reptilian brain

your absence tramples my soul
like a heard of stampeding buffalo


like the last day itself
the anniversary of my sorrow
passed before i realized

but realization is a luxury
lying in a warm bath relaxing
not scrubbing away the grime

the reptilian brain lies beneath
layers of other ways of knowing
blanketed by limbic and neocortex

and yes i smile and even laugh
but memories buried are not faded
these masks evolutionary camouflage

a sorrow seeded by circles of secrecy
a sorrow like a Sisyphean boomerang
a sorrow born and one year gone

and now my ritual of being is me
i am my rite of sorrow and recollection
at least that is what i think deep down

hoof-battered and caked with dust
sand in my mouth and across my lips
the desert floor has made up my mind

the bones of birds and dinosaurs pressed
so deeply into stone that we have forgotten
how to love the imprint of life in fossils


your presence sates my reptilian brain

your absence tramples my soul
like a heard of stampeding buffalo

i am a flying dragon
i am a flightless rhea
my sole performance
pretending to be human

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