The Hideous Art of Unbecoming
Mo Alnaham
I was told to be wary of the tree of heavy
hearted vision, those lurid fruits leave
stark stains on lips, sour to a suckle,
Its sinuous roots draw voluptuous tale, but
I seek wonder and folly and throw myself
into brief eternity,
Heave the hand that strikes the hour and
sit in deferred resignation, the eternal Now,
the hum that sits below the throat,
But I know I must act, before I endlessly
walk in dreams, before the moment acts
upon itself, the shakiness of every pass,
Where amputated gestures steer me into
oblivion, slumped silhouettes, haunting
me with half-written dreams,
Nebulous dreams of an image I’ve yet to
paint, with resplendent colors I forage in
sleep, iridescent only in memory,
I reach out in desolate dreamscape, peer
through haze and reflect, bellow and
bid a well to cast it all away,
With its effervescent mysteries, bubbling up
trepidations, I can only pray for diluvian rain
to wash away my inhibitions,
Its shallow waters mirror all but self, backward
gazing, those specters of yesterday
whose shadows grow heavy,
Like stygian-soaked skin from stagnant streams,
of brine and wonder, privy to a fault, ’til I
can no longer breathe on the driest of lands,
So I submit, to wayward whim of earthbound
glory, sun and cicada, those pagan winds
where I lose my self, to a voice of clarity,
But daybreak falls and it’s deafened, by the
valiant thrum of hearts, eroding sense like
tides of attrition, pounding, pounding away,
Before a flutter and a fall, a tremor and
a lull, and murmurs of the heart become
echoes in the ether. . .