Time Drifting

There was a moment
Of absurd laughter
Footsteps on sand
Navigating the darkness
Within and without
Followed by a comforting silence
A certain knowledge of transcendence
Without a need to fill the air with chatter
To clutter the perfect absence
Of sound and of light
Taboo and norms
Clothing and courtesy
Communication and comprehension 

The harsh winds recede
Black water at low tide
A deserted shore
Transforms into a desert
The dunes become a mountain range
Obscuring the distraction
Comforting the  lost fragments of light
Of a distant archway
Of illuminated pillars
And gardens of wild fruit
Until the sands and mountains also roll back
Into the dark ocean
Of shifting time

Caligula's Concomitant

Cautiously, he steps across Caligula's concomitant 
Which forms a long, curved, polluted stream 
Flowing in the wrong direction
His feet seemingly defy gravity 
He floats through every step
Never falling into the suffocating material below
Rather, the mass of strange black matter
Is precisely what holds him up 
And carries him to the other side
It is hard for him to be grateful, though
As the dark material is the reason
He was initially forced to move

Humor and Dreams

There is an old man
Who I've known a long time
Living downstairs from me
He used to tell me humor
Was number one on his list of the most
Precious things on this Earth
If a person didn't smile
He had the talent to change that
His charisma always shined
Sometimes brighter than he wanted
In recent times, he's been quiet
He doesn't talk about humor
He doesn't try to get people to laugh
Instead, he carries a shovel everywhere
And when he finds
A soft patch of soil, he digs
I asked him what he was digging for
And he told me dreams
Which are, of course, the second item
On his list of most precious things
I don't know why he has to dig for them, though
Perhaps he buried them before
He discovered humor
And now that it is gone,
Perhaps he hopes to find
The next best thing.

The Expanse

On an uncharted, soil-less
Expanse of metal and steam
Hissing sounds of valves
The whirring of lubricated parts
A repetitious machine
Stirred out of rhythm for an instant
But was quickly corrected
By the surrounding machines
This was something that had never,
In previous operations, occurred 
Yet, it had been planned for,
Accounted for,
And the processes, the controls in place
To correct the error
Immediately reacted
Setting off a wave of occurrences
That had also never happened previously
The precise perfection
Of a thousand planned motions
Made imprecise by a fraction of time
Displaced by the steel hands of chance
The ripple traveled across time
Heavy vibrations penetrate form
As the collective weight
In spite of its perfect symmetry and balance
Rotated the mass of its whole
Contorting and pulling
Shapes from shapeless
And shapeless shapes
Settling into a new collective
Its deformity becomes the new mold

Coils

A coil tightens with every movement
Each struggle is a new bruise
Blood and crushed bone pressed to the surface
The shape of man transforms
Into symbols of currency, pleasures, and pride

A suffocating air hovers above the court
A lawn of dust replaces the lush green
Carved stone, marble, and priceless metals
Coat burning rubble, scattered pieces of clockwork
Under the monuments built to honor progress

The great buildings tilt to opposite directions
Their windows are intact only at the top
But like everything below their oasis
They will also succumb to the fate of the foundation
That falters and decays in the struggle against time

The Grip

Listening to the sounds
Of an army marching
From the North
He prepares a shelter
And buries his soul beneath a barricade
Then he waits for the sky
To open like a fatal wound
To wash the salt away
His steady hands build a fire
As his knees tremble
Knowing the warmth will be irrelevant
Once his grip is cold

The Ferry

The ferry slowly moves across the river
Oblivious to a passenger left behind
Even if he was noticed
The boat cannot return quickly
So he sits and waits at the dock
His feet swinging over the water

He marvels at his inability to catch up to
Something traveling so slowly
He smiles and laughs at the inconvenience
Because there is little else he can do
But to pause and enjoy
A sunny day with a view

Of ships and barges and passengers
The captains and their crews
Transporting a precious cargo
Creating a massive wake
That travels past a liquid line
And gradually dissipates