There's an alternative to this consumer imperative
which navigates its way diligently
suggesting a potential for failure
In a solitary stance
you move
providing fodder
for the expanse of the generic
You emerge in a historical context
a unique subject of repetition
irreducible
and down to the spinal
of a said place
Over the horizontal you trip
with the expectation of summering well
potential seasons awaiting anxiously
adjacent to stigmatic
translucent skies
You are forced into
the diction of alienation
an estrangement from our community
The tradition of climbing standing
dominates
while we sit as the minority
Adrift you are ambitious
your experience our hindrance
The world is dying
as you attempt to live
leaving footprints on its decaying crust
In praxis
circuitously seeking a freedom
you deem essential
An adventure
funneled as abortive
creates in its wake
a radiance
bordering on obscurity
a diphthong
leering at your hiatus
An emblem
masking absence
shackles your grief
just as I
again
become audible
and speak to you
in unimportant tones
A living rotation
completes the habitation
of a creative circuit
while you seem uninclined
to disclose your fixation of
limbo
Dominant with tension
is the perplexity of
place
as I come as the last line of where you began
Calvin Pennix lives with his wife and daughter in Mission Viejo, CA where he is completing his MFA and MA in English at Chapman University. He is currently an instructor at Everest College, where he teaches Composition, Literature and Algebra and has just completed his thesis in which he attempts to portray that imagination, art, literature and history are as real as experience. Calvin currently has work appearing in UCity Review and A Few Lines Magazine.