ditch.

by Matthew Welde

that's all you wanted to be

clay way out in space

copper canyon

a little place to hide away

a spoken sign that makes decent memories on ocean fictions

told by the tallest ghost and respected by the ancestors of embrace

but the nearing of the end pulls you closer to that sad man throwing towels

so exit zero to push the boat through the river and eventually out to sea

but don't be afraid

there's no guns out here just whales and sharks with teeth like a bear trap

did you plan to be a land-grazing creature forever?

without returning?

are you still dry?

will you get wet without diving into madness?

lay on the sky and look at yourself

you keep going by

going by the door

if you're a lock then turn over

find the key

follow the angel radiant enough to show itself

and stay alert

one who casts no spell of their own is subject to the curse of another

there is a key

find it

notice the compass; spinning like a dreidel

back through the tradition of sapiens back through a mustard seed

where words like these sprang up first

the vehicle

the mustard seed

the car that drove into a ditch and the passengers who survived and created life in a ditch

get me out of this ditch!

i want to live!

i want to live above ground where tongues are extinct

and nature's cruel hand shows no bias

and creates no illusion

where the heart must choose to be like a heart or like a stone

and if the heart is like a stone it is still

and if the heart is like a heart it is moved by the magic of discipline

and carries on inward until it explodes onto the banks with a harmonica

ecstatic

it's toes still in the estuary

blowing like a storm into a lightbulb

shedding light on the ditch and then filling that fucker in

shattering the last bullet with a tiny idea

just a little, tiny idea that finds a home in your heart

the holy reverberation

the discarding of conformity and its subtle game lost eternally with the other afraid

controllers of the grabbable, the gullible, the confused, the lonely, the painful, the wrongfully

mistaken and unlucky forgetful travelers who come here to be fooled over and over again

until they no longer can be fooled and get out of that damned ditch

​

these hands were made for making

and this heart was made to love

these eyes eyes were made for seeing

that this mind is from above

​