Draft of, Within the Bullet, from a future project tentatively titled, “Dampness”
Within the Bullet By Jasen Sousa
Dedicated to Sylvia Plath
Somebody is shooting at something in our city.
Is it a vein, a person, a star?
If you place your ear toward
the vertical sky, you will be able
to hear sounds within sounds.
Different images seen within the scope;
family members, political leaders, and inner demons
melting from within the eyes
and drying in the shapes
of tattoos, scars, and fresh open wounds.
Abraham Lincoln
and a Ku Klux Klan member
play a game of chess in the middle
of a street on top
of a manhole cover.
Stuck, leaves fall
on fresh tar. Bleeding
outside of you like grass
reaching from crevices in the sidewalk.
The victor holds the gun and is allowed to speak.
If only everyone’s thoughts and ideas
were as selective as the poet
who does not believe in God’s voice
but in sounds created
by nature. Squeeze
the trigger, inject the needle, reach
for the moving star and move
through life like the wind
is your best friend who will
not allow you to stay still and get caught
up. Paint from the dome
of the State House dissolves
and is captured and molded
into golden guns which are handed
out in the inner city like candy.
Businessmen with bowties, thick
glasses and sharpened pencils
create statistics which are only
relevant during elections.
Count stagnant shadows
of unknown victims shot
by unknown assailants, watch
numbers rise like the gas
pump, like invisible debt
displayed slowly on sturdy analog clocks.
Smiles are stitched together by morticians,
do not believe their shape, do not
believe in planned death even
though they have taken your picture off
your mother’s nightstand and placed it on the news.
Put down your weapon kid, the one
held inside your cold grey hands
and be free. Your hands were made
to build, not to destroy
yourself and others with loud technology.
Someone is shooting at someone in our city
and it stings like a swarm
of penetrating bees.
I have an allergy I was born with.
Paint the darkness of your mind with my crimson nectar.
Dedicated to Sylvia Plath
Somebody is shooting at something in our city.
Is it a vein, a person, a star?
If you place your ear toward
the vertical sky, you will be able
to hear sounds within sounds.
Different images seen within the scope;
family members, political leaders, and inner demons
melting from within the eyes
and drying in the shapes
of tattoos, scars, and fresh open wounds.
Abraham Lincoln
and a Ku Klux Klan member
play a game of chess in the middle
of a street on top
of a manhole cover.
Stuck, leaves fall
on fresh tar. Bleeding
outside of you like grass
reaching from crevices in the sidewalk.
The victor holds the gun and is allowed to speak.
If only everyone’s thoughts and ideas
were as selective as the poet
who does not believe in God’s voice
but in sounds created
by nature. Squeeze
the trigger, inject the needle, reach
for the moving star and move
through life like the wind
is your best friend who will
not allow you to stay still and get caught
up. Paint from the dome
of the State House dissolves
and is captured and molded
into golden guns which are handed
out in the inner city like candy.
Businessmen with bowties, thick
glasses and sharpened pencils
create statistics which are only
relevant during elections.
Count stagnant shadows
of unknown victims shot
by unknown assailants, watch
numbers rise like the gas
pump, like invisible debt
displayed slowly on sturdy analog clocks.
Smiles are stitched together by morticians,
do not believe their shape, do not
believe in planned death even
though they have taken your picture off
your mother’s nightstand and placed it on the news.
Put down your weapon kid, the one
held inside your cold grey hands
and be free. Your hands were made
to build, not to destroy
yourself and others with loud technology.
Someone is shooting at someone in our city
and it stings like a swarm
of penetrating bees.
I have an allergy I was born with.
Paint the darkness of your mind with my crimson nectar.