Jesse S. Mitchell

Goldfish Memory

This is all goldfish memory and piano fire, ratlines

And chicken wire.  Fiberglass heads with holes smashed in

And all sorts of metal swinging, pipe wielding, crow bar-demons

And the scissor-legged things…they will cut out your throat…

The jug-eared fiends and spider-lipped men

Who mean to rip us down like dead ships

In some dead bay.

Robotic robotic, 

metallic like dust

Static static, 

I can’t hear my own voice.

Numb numb

And I’m all thumbs,

Fumble with the latches, 

Deaf and dumb.

All of this burning, all of this burning, burning burning because of the flames

The air and the wild waving of arms.

All of these curses, red brick walls, road blocked traffic,

All of this is noise

Built out of virus.

All of this spiritualism and legend, mysticism and fable

All of this atheism, fascism, dualism, 

All of it platonic, of course

All of it, split

Turned over, leaking out, backwards and hanging

Upside down

Like dead spirits aloft like tissue,

Ripped ripped like Chittagong

Still floating with the shadow-tatters

Underneath the light.

Robotic robotic,  

metallic like dust

Static static, 

I can’t hear my own voice.

Bone sky dry, we will never see the rain.

Bone sky dry, we will never see the rain,

If we never see the rain

Then the rain never came

And the fire still burns

Bone sky dry, 

we will never see the rain, again.

Robotic robotic,  metallic like dust

Static static, I can’t hear my own voice.

Numb numb

And I’m all thumbs,

Fumble with the latches, 

Deaf and dumb.

Jesse S. Mitchell was born a lucky lump of clay with a full head of hair and was raised by a wild pack of televisions. Now, he writes pretty stories on the backs of old magazines and out of date bus schedules. Site: modern rage