roy orbison
its about time
its about terror
8 years old in my
houston subdivision
i climbed the house
under construction
next door
put my foot
on deceptive tar-paper
not the edge of the roof
the event took a very long time
i looked up and wondered
did i have time to grab the edge of the roof?
i looked at the ground and thought about
alice in wonderland
october 24th, 1901
annie taylor
down on her luck
called up cooper to build her a barrel
then she headed down to the falls in
a victorian dress and a hat with ostrich feathers:
a real lady
enormous
everyone said:
that woman is dead
there is nothing
but a dead woman
in that barrel
she stepped out of the barrel
but she didn’t look right
she was your grandma
she died in a poorhouse
a man did the same
and toured the world
but fate had him
slip on an orange rind
get a compound fracture
gangrene
and death
hypnic jerk
100 pounds of coleslaw
we slept in trees
ground life was stressful
his little brain
brain to foot
foot back to brain
a corrective motor command
with each step you fall forward slightly
and then catch yourself
people like death and mayhem
everyone likes to stretch
a stretch is nice but
that stretch continues
beyond comfort levels
the tidal force so great
you snap at the
base of the spine
you will survive that snap
extruded through the fabric of space
like toothpaste through a tube
