What Rough Beast | 07 01 20 | Isabel Duque

Isabel Duque
Ticking Time Bomb

Tick,
Treading on a snake that is already broken,
The feeling of withdraw.
The chaos normal, consumption normal, with all
The clamor, cacophony, teeth.
Bang.

A Dream vision peppered with Death,
Clinical isolation, and chained feet. Rattle.

The humbling warmth of a cup full, the intoxicating crevices of a lover,
The cracking of a spine, the uninhibited cackle of a dear friend, the
Light streaming in through dressed branches from a lapis lazuli afternoon.
Hiss.

The eye knows where the sun dances,
And the moon bathes naked.
The hand tinkers away at wood, gathers herbs and grain, and makes bellies full.
The mind swirls in the ebbs of canyons,
Looking for a desert flower, when it really hungers for
A supple horizon, that simply recedes.
Thump, thump, thump.

Ah, the Heart.
It is relentless in its ache,
With its bloody chambers, its avenues a raging river,
Expanding,
Contracting,
Wearing down stone. Gushing wild, raving mad and all-pervading.
Piercing and permeating Mundis. Reaching.
Until—
Stillness, silence.

Tock, rustle, whisper,
The shedding of Matter,
Inhabiting the lightness of a new skin,
The bounce of every scale reverberating during the dance
Across the warm, rust colored Earth.
The wind cleanses the taut, long body,
The birth of being.
Aum.

—Submitted on 05/05/2020

Isabel Duque writes: Daughter of Little Havana, trying to bewitch with letters, pictures, music and movement. Always seeking rhythm, ritual and the heart’s fire.

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