Tyson West
Kirkland Cutter's Chapel Bells
Kirkland Cutter's chapel bells strike the instant
I pick up Pooka's poo near Mary's mother's niche
in a plastic bag once holding sweet summer peaches from Dirty Al's.
As mind plots our path to the waste can
worrying simultaneously my daughter's drama
forms of death intimate their approach with each exhale.
My youth dripped its pigments on canvas abstract impressioning
the brutal absurdity of my distant end yet with age, realism revives.
Sooner my microverse will hum no more and billions of bacteria
and fungi spores my immune system held off will ken Elvis has left the building.
My rotting flesh will carry them under the curved ceiling of a fire brick lined retort
all thought blinked out, plans dissolved and property I pretended I groomed dissipated
shirts and jeans and socks voyaging to rot in some third world landfill
while calcium from my bones crushed and scattered on semi desert soil
dissipates as the ring of a bell.
Bio
Tyson West has published speculative fiction and poetry in free verse, form verse and haiku distilled from his mystical relationship with noxious weeds and magpies in Eastern Washington. He has no plans to quit his day job in real estate.