Momentarily Lost in New Mexico

Momentarily Lost in New Mexico

 

We flew laughing

down a thousand miles of highway

slicing cities, deserts, and mountain ranges neatly in two

then watching them close seamlessly behind us

again and again.

 

Slept in the cab of your pickup

crushed against the doors, the gearshift, each other

Until discomfort and the sunrise

woke me to a day

that begged the rememberance of innocence

 

Like white-cotton t-shirts stretched across

warm, sun-brown skin

and the smell of mud-pies we baked in your back yard

decorated with tiny yellow flowers, weeds

from the empty lot next door.

 

Wincing, I shook the blood back into my legs

gathered my toothbrush, backpack

and made my way to another rest-stop bathroom

wondering once again

exactly where I was.

-c. bottlecappie

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another one from the vaults. hope you enjoy it.

Full Moon

Full Moon

 

The rains have come to pass again,

borne upon a warm Pacific wind

unceasing, water falls

for one hundred days

and I listen

until his turbulence fills my head

and I no longer know

whose voice I hear

in and around me.

 

El Niño, your song

is unending whispering howling

describing visions of hell

undoubtedly familiar,

never remembering the heaven

I once touched from the tops

of mountains:

You can only go by foot

smoke stained lungs

struggling

with every step

Finally

letting the trees breathe for you

 

Let the machine breathe for you

these, the first words I heard

upon surfacing, a failure yet again

Wondering

How many resurrections

can you have in a life?

Christ had one

and the world

gives money to his cause to this day

but waking in the hospital

shot through with tubes

is not the same

as appearing triumphant

three days past crucifixion

in the yawning mouth of your own tomb,

the stone rolled away…

Nice touch,

the man had style.

He claimed to die for my sins

but that’s a heavy burden to carry

So I choose to suffer for mine

Myself

 

Stubborn,

turning my back on

My own rebirth

for fear of losing

a sustaining madness

constructed from stories so old

they barely belong to me anymore:

Yellowed pages

bound in cracking spines,

and this incessant wind

articulating every faded line

wears me down

into a conquered state of longing

for the quiet

of water dripping from the

shutters

outside.

-C. bottlecappie

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Haven’t had time to write much lately, but I’d like to share this older poem for now. -bc