Tolerant Stones

Pencil tolls paper...quivers sly
Wishes, chopped fibres that
                                                     Mildew.         >            Rainbows
roil hustle, bent in
with ribs and carbonated teeth, didn’t need up
altogether, sprinkles cluttering the caps; you want
 
them, it, All. To know
      the caustic unburdening
torches delivered in fire chalk, haste tall
bring gut low days    must
filter. Through
fingers, tiny remainders of violins, disservice and cakes, flies on      yes, it does
 
The windowsill      flies               <                  Of mud to water, to dirt of air, the bird of tunnels,
                                                                            mires and swat.
 
Tonic is unavailable.  At this time,
try a cheap
                      meander, sunken faux friend (but, ah, they increase in value,
the price guide urges,     buy now,
                                       buy with impunity, collect for the decades.
For someone, maybe not you, but this is a guide
not philosophy, please confer with your local librarian)
it quenches
clock softened validation, sought forgotten,
                                  trenched in a hip pocket. Watch
 
                 for the old habits, breathe
 path tracks bauble
wander straight backward, twisting upright
                             a destination
With no arrival time quoted.     >      Scripting blurs
 
chardonnay heads, word traps
slap a slivered coil
of clouds grass, heels coasting
refraction. Dogs
shake forward their senses, out cubic tongues, diving
for tolerant stones
cast on former thoughts
about this? When they cannot suffer
 
more, when whatever keeps them walking
leaves, let’s poise
the tarred and feathered lapses
 
here. Malady skin, folds
over whitecaps, beneath wind;
sun weight expounding
levels adjusted to carry. Faces devoid
of the dead man who walks
ahead of eventuality. When the two meet
exit is created by an end,
the remnants
       coding
those who were solid
next.

This piece originally appeared in Counterexample Poetics.