| Recording (a dictation) What do you have to say? Chasing phrases out of your head, through your mouth. What do they amount to, strung together like pixilated beads? We say what needs to be said in any given moment, even if we use our hands. We motion capture— What can I say to grab your attention? What’s committed to page & picture tells only half the story. Secretly, there’s a narrative I’m writing in my head that ends with you off-camera & our conversation anything but mundane. We do what we do for fun not for public approval or for entertainment value, though people tune in & subscribe to see who the next Scorpio sucker to disappoint will be. What are you looking for? Just say the words & out of infinity it comes. There’s nothing for you in night school— I was there all this time saving you a seat, until my liberation caught like a match. You care little for the code call & I’m throwing stones at your window. Press stop— ©Ryan Collins 2007 |
| Ghost Associations Our memories select the sweetest songs to twist open our arms, stand up hairs on the backs of our necks. We never know who we’re haunting, right? Or who’s haunting us, for that matter. All we know is that we only remember half, protected from going down the deep wells we cannot climb out of, that we are afraid of falling & uncertain that ghosts are real. Whatever is real, if ghosts are not, who are we being haunted by? Falling from memory out of memory, we have only those who we touch along the way. & we never know when those touches will return to hold hold sway once again, bringing back songs to tell the difference, the distance between our memory & ghosts. ©Ryan Collins 2007 |
Dear Columbus— It’s birthday season & been awhile. If only it were just the trips that’re long & strange. So fall the bones. Now, least for me, there’s a view of the river— a variety of bridges, shortcuts ‘round the Arsenal. We used to be top 10 strategic targets in the event of a domestic military strike, before the Fort, before the cannon fodder. But who’s there to bomb when everything’s domesticated, gratis & on-strike? Just three reasons out of ten thousand why I won’t trip anymore. Everyday there’s a new one. Besides, I can see thru most everything I’ll ever want to & I’m too young to go all transparent, get terrible & be sold down the river. Check & mate, Quad Cities ©Ryan Collins 2007 |
