Sad Shark

 
With the waves crashing down on me
Peeling away layers of my shiny vanity
I furiously paint my coat anew, anew
desecrate in some attempt to demonstrate
And I won’t ignore gravity
Or the shadows cast by the light of others
I forgive all of that and need the weight -
to slip away, not to be held down by love

the happiness that drifted like smoke into the breeze
laughing at these cigarette burns upon my shaky hands


I stomped down the track and slipped into a pear trellis
There was a special cross on one of the trees
it was tiny compared to those around it
Its branches meekly held its own fruit
A golden, red nashi
The fruit had an odd texture
It had ripened in all the wrong places
A spongy portion lay around the tree and in the grass
It’s not taking to, having been planted here

so I escape to the city, hoodoo lounges
all I can hear is the same sound
but I listen carefully
the city taught me how ridiculous it all is

and I can’t help but to imagine other people’s lives
what they’ve done and what they will do
different versions of themselves
through the ether, colliding as they walk
explosions of light throughout the city
and I walk with ghosts, nearly alone

I radiate these dormant particles
It’s so easy to look through to a person’s light
when there’s only one source of it
and to recognize it reassuringly
They will see through me and see nothing
Or attempt to blindly pluck at the invisible strings
I see through that and I think your mind is made
Although I can’t be sure because that’s my way

I hate this man, the way he plods his prance

Perhaps it’s my vanity, with all his chauvinistic sexuality mixed with his ugliness. It’s just my vanity and who’s to know which of ours is more honest. He has warped the image and it’s strange to be so close to it. Why does this street move around us like it does? None of it makes sense. The old and the new, money, sex. It doesn’t seem ideal to me, understandable but certainly not ideal.  Then he acts like he has just seen through to my soul as he says,
 “You still love her, no?”
and blows out a cloud of strawberry and watermelon flavored smoke.
 I didn’t reply but he had caught me off guard, he could see right through that.
“Let’s leave”
But we didn’t, by this time we were so drunk we just sat there drinking tea. She smoked the Shisha that was being passed round and I chained smoked cigarettes. I don’t know what I could have possibly said to anybody or what they said to us but they seemed content just to sit with her and I couldn’t blame them, it’s all I was doing. Miserable.
A table of ghosts that wish to spark some life
Some light into this night but I can’t
I am a ghost and I’m not sure what will bring me back to life
But it’s not this, not tonight, not her breath or her warmth
      Her beauty means little as it turns out      

I've watched the ghosts laugh and the ghosts smile
the bright shadows of restless hearts
tumble, searching for a vein
To touch upon from where they were cast
 
I've stopped to reflect upon my
swirling and blurring vision
And pictured blood filling my skull
the dizzy ripples waves pulsating
bile slick on the water's surface
like Christ's oily footprints

I've come to a conclusion
I dare not mutter

I've become disillusioned
with my struggle