2 – ian

so i put on a side as i walked out
towards the city lights
hoping for something to shout

sometimes your silence
and a walk after sleep
are enough to convince me
though my thoughts fade
that we’re all broken
because we were made

when i’m quiet i can hear my fear
like a river that screams as it rushes
a room full of voices raised at once
audible as it crushes
composed of words i can’t understand

and when i’m asleep my human dreams are distraught by nature
my mind reels to find
images and feelings by morning i rarely remember
broken boys dry eyes agape at televisions telling the story of love
and those holy days in mid december

i sat on a hill and watched them
all brought to a cliff and made to jump off
with that drunk old supermarket cough
their deaths they couldn’t embrace
unmedicated fear that i could taste
in their voices as they leapt from their palimpsest lives undone
those dull screams
like bullets shot at the sun

when i talk i feel their weight
words lost as i walk after them
the ugly notion that i’m too late

~ by engelberger on April 6, 2008.