Frighteningly Inert

Adrift on waters

Stagnant, charged, ion wet,

The pumice golem

On and off again,

Averse to new versions,

Soldering patches over kneed corduroys,

Moulded by no volcanic hand

Other than his own.

Horrified by the profanities of his family god,

Horrified by the refrain of his digital anima,

Luminescent soul between muddied fingers

—now usb 3.0 compatible—

Horrified by the naïveté of younger affirmations:

I am in control of my desires

I am unsullied by the blood crystals on my palm

I am unsullied.

Ornithologists with shears make for irate avians

With wings clipped,

Clipped wires and frames,

Circuit mid-flight shorted.

I am unsullied by the outside,

The outside that crawls and seethes in me,

The outside that is me,

Is my insides.

I am unsullied by my insides,

By the abjected charging cables,

And my missing teeth,

And the probiotics,

And the dust illuminated between

My optic nerve and all those that seek its attention.

Again, again.

Adrift on spewing, insipid, lusting waters,

Aren’t I porous and malleable in the gloaming?

Isn’t Daddy proud?

I was always earth-strewn,

A brief interlude of disequilibrium.

This pumice golem was never sacred

In the glaring static of hidden foamy currents.