christopher eck - two poems


Saying Cheese

Nations of outrage inside
the mind of one
with a camera and
a libidinous instinct
for electronic equipment.
These are the positions 
of a secret pyramid.
A structure heavier than 
the magma core
and nearly as hot
rests in each sudden eye.
He sets the stage quietly, 
one looking for candy
in the sea of 
thumb-tacks.
Another hair-trigger trapped
to a string of prime numbers
and none of it really quite so 
important as it seems
until...
twirl goes the pinwheel
out go the lights.


A Corpse on the Beach

We'll hold the avalanche in a weakening grasp until
it bathes us.
I dreamt he nestled his head beside yours -- on
my left he loved me.
You asked me to sing the hymn in my head.
You found my center.
This was my dream.

Could this be the last poem in a dwindling carapace
of fantasy?
Could this be the lowest?  The most satisfying
sleep on a vagabond trail of garbage?

And while you're asking, I slip back into a coma
and just let go,
feel your weight on my chest become utter suffocation,
begin to drown before I've even started to swim.
This dirge rampages onwards like a train we can't 
derail, fumbling with a cadence we can't resolve.

We.  You.  I.  Him.

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