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Place |
Looking for place, my thoughts are not the whole truth.
The truth of place lies in the eye of the perceiver,
The ear of the dumb, the mouth of the deaf.
To fathom space, place this mind bending journey,
Let your mind open, as you read what I weave into these words.
It behooves us to know that place is neither position, land, proper order,
Rank. It is more than that figuratively occupied by a thing or group.
Place encircles you as you paint the landscape
Green, wide, empty, full, encrusted with our past.
It’s in the crevices of deserts where katydids sing, where
The mountain lion stalks its prey, and eyes you with languish,
Unable to lick your wounds or steady your hand as you
Capture its lush home. The prairie shouts with silence,
Yet you are crushed by your own greed – your conscience
Would kill the enemy – place—crushing your sensibilities.
Why are we blind to the blessings of all place.
Instead, we just exist.
Place envelopes you with the timbre of the universe,
But do we listen? No. We swamp ourselves
With blabbering moments to numb our ears so our
Universal music wastes away, waiting for our stupidity
To let loose, we shun the sounds that could blend us
Into the orchestrated harmony of God. We deafen ourselves
With cars, jungle drums tingling our sex, and
Obliterating our connection to the Soundless One
Who needs no speech or drums, but listens to the
Beating of our hearts,
The bleating of our cries,
The seething of our animal spirits, aching to find place
So we can hear home.
Speaking of home, have its walls covered with colors
You choose to stir primitive memories, and art that
You buy to take with you into the core of you, where all
Our histories are written in globs of protein, stored in
Grey matter, unfathomable, unreachable any other way
But to be pricked by the nuances of amorphous states
Which grab it, shape its living matter, some clay art, and
Suddenly you remember what that history was-
The history of your love affair, its orgasmic web spun
Around your body over and over again, until you
Asked God how your body could be connected to
The universal clit that provides the drug – the drug of love
Which men have sold countries for – given their lives for,
And women have sold themselves into slavery for.
All this as you lay mesmerized by the shapes and colors
Of the art on your walls, your walls, your home.
Place. Fabricated by all the words in our languages,
The words that ostracize, that embellish lies to one another
As though it’s love when it’s actually possession.
We possess each other but can never possess place.
We possess the bodies of children and wives and lovers.
As we explain who we really are to them, we are
The power of money, we explain, we are the power,
We are the mega companies like Microsoft, Enron,
CBS, Verizon, the telecommunicators, intelligences,
Fascinations with our own voices, every minute of
Every empty day, listening to each other talk of nothing.
Nothing is ever said in the 500 minute plan
Or 800 minute plan which we responsibly share with our love ones
So we can talk of nothing. Everything that need
Be said, we screamed in each other’s ear in bed.
Screamed over breakfast-something about your whereabouts,
Whereabouts, trying to go to talkless worlds
So we can choose to be deaf in the silence-
So we can find place, and know we are alive, after all.
Without the insipid daily talk that embalms our egos
And accomplishes nothing in this busy, busy world.
I’d rather be deaf.
We are deaf to all that matters.
Place is an exercise.
Now place your purse here, your shoes there, lipsticks in a box.
Neatly- all the boxes fill up every drawer. Nothing else
Will fit. Once our possessions have been stored, safely,
The place is set up-isn’t it? What’s left?
The place OUTSIDE! Outside has no place.
In a frenzy we wonder how to organize, analyze,
Structurize, phantomize, wonderize, the
Words of the president, his henchmen, the judges.
The lawmakers, who monopolize our place outside.
If we have no outside because these selfish,
Egocentric, power hungry, immoral, unethical freaks
Pose as peace makers, we have no where to go
After we leave home.
They take our place outside as their own, the
Big Boy network buys it every time re-election comes along.
And choosing one from their group, they forgo their word
To give us peaceful place, where we can eat, drink,
Fuck, and relish the products of our complex minds,
Allowing us to give thanks on our knees to our God
For the resting place, outside our door, and everywhere
Other than home.
We allow them access to our place by not voting
Or voting. They laugh all the way to their homes
Bought with our outside. And all I can hear
Is the shouting of the crowds who’ve won;
Relegating us to stay inside, home our refuge,
Outside becomes the enemy, the other faces outside
Of home, foreign with unknowingness, is an angry
Sea. They are outside in that other place
Where liars, thieves and killers become richer, with
Fame bought by their sins, and we buy their books,
O.J. tee-shirts, bursting with TV ratings, we pay for sin
In America. WE pay for sin in America.
And when we do, we bastardize place, our only
Refuge from ourselves.
Place – our self made hell, even if we plead our
Innocence. It’s too late. We close our ears,
Hide out in our homes and give up the world
To sons-of-bitches relishing in their booty,
With no sound, not even a sigh, that speaks to asking
For forgiveness. We pay for sins in America.
And we’ll forfeit sighs of peace, in place.
Are we laughing yet?
Is all this mere ranting?
It’s just that place is being threatened.
Let’s take just a few minutes to revile our
Vicissitudes about decisions we could make,
Or will need to make, to safeguard place.
copyright 2005
Maria Rose
Burgio |
