< Issue 2 >
Road Map
by Paulie Lipman
Sound
only echoes
when its got walls to cage it
When the din of 3am
blasts out past my ears
instead of shouting down the band
I curl up into a ball, still as the night
outside Providence
Meditation
is yet another process
which cinches anxiety into my neck
in fear of getting it wrong, and therefore
useless to me
Nostalgia
shares too many letters
with Insomnia to not be related
Both keep me up two hours
past Reason
Some time past 27
both my eyes started to drift, craning
so hard to look behind me that
I have better memories
of the back of my skull than anything
that's happened since
Desire
doesn't live ferocious
under my skin anymore
I only see orgasm
as function, a compulsion
that clears my thinking
My sexuality, now nothing
but a rolling, roadside snowfield
18 wide and gusting, past loves
memorials' mark its turns like
white picket crosse
Silence
is only possible
with clenched teeth
to shelter it
God
is now a rubbed raw penny
dirty and comforting
Oh, Great King/Queen of the Clouds
please keep my prayers tawdry
I'd rather have my menagerie
lit seedily, then blasted lifeless
by Noon's cheer
Give me the distinct rattling of neon
throwing holy rolling halos over all
who walk beneath it
A bright rapture
without a dark set journey at its beginning
is ultimately
worthless
Life
has cast me from
45 to 90 degrees of SIsyphus, impossible
unattainable, then just as quickly
as Atlas just before the knees buckle
straight back, world
perfectly balanced on confident shoulders
Dawn
makes sense of the swirling debris
left in the wake of 5 am, giving
the reluctant communion of Sleep
to all of its late coming choir
Bells
can only peal, if you
give them enough hollow
to swing
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