Storm Chasers

For T.S.W., and you.

Rain mists in a vortex around us.

Wind weaves our hair into nests,

gusts billow deafeningly—

gladly, it masks the annoyance of everyone else

with white noise.

Random objects swirl around—

mirror shards to cut, black-cat bones to

become lodged in our throats, broken boards

with tetanus nails, pieces of people,

their Umbrellas, and shredded yellow trenchcoats.

They rushed: gathered their children & puppies,

loaded up minivans to flee the storm.

They’re history: wouldn’t sit, cross-legged,

like the Buddha, levitating in detachment—

wouldn’t stare unflinchingly into the Eye of the Tornado,

let it carry them away.

They’d rather: push, madly, in hordes

toward exponential decay.

Yes.

We’re here together,

beyond the confines of Time,

in the sensual vent of the volcano,

which houses the Spirit of the Monster,

and we aren’t afraid.

We like it here

where the truth dwells.

The monster lives inside, too,

thriving off the pain of

in the sinews of Truth.

Huge in size, with a tiny, efficient heart,

covered in a sticky film of fly-trap ooze,

(Don’t touch, only stare.)

Of course it has green eyes,

not leaf-green, more like Alexandrite.

Sometimes they’re steel-blue.

Behind the beautiful eyes of the Monster,

a storm brews.

And we, crazy storm chasers,

will charge with full-force, headlong, no-holds barred, fuelled by mothers’ pleas and all our scars,

to be uplifted, exponentially, and swallowed into the eye of the storm,

for in the heart of this suffering,

we feel, intensely, the most beautiful art form.

26 June - 9 July 2013