Stormy Atalanta

run, run, i have to run,
run, run

up, pajamas, up legs, up and on to carpet, into thick pile,
come on. come on.

down stairs, come on, get heart, get it hard, thump it,
drum, drum, come on. get out, onto asphalt, come on.
run,

road crunches under bare soul and still
i run,
along painted lines, morse code, always the same letter,
one, one, one, one, one,
faster, come on, run, faster,

the avenue long and lined with broken trees, lined with
skeletons, so run, come on, up, run up
off road and into sky, into slab of stone sky
run, run

birds smack into my stomach, oh shit, sick, and i run,
away and on, i run on,

up and past clouds, run, come on, through them,
sticky oathes, past them, and out, and up, and on,
feel heels ice up, riven with glaciers
tears push through my beard and gather stones,
just run, on,
run,

i run, soon, feet lead the horizon, once a line,
now bowing, curling, i, running, leave sky and cloud
and now, before me hangs moon and earth and sun,
i run, on

out, out of it all, i run,
cold stellar wind strips flesh,
go, be gone, unnecessary beauty,
i see dead space litter,
the ghosts of umbrellas, gold foil like star gilt,
i run,

planet drops off like a ball, a stone, a fruit, something i could hold
in my hand, moon, tiny speck, sun on my back,

feet wrecked and legs all fibre, on

out, fucking out, and on,
run, run, run

sun is dot, all is cold and black,
the world inert, run,
on,
out,
out,

no matter now, only sigh of footfall, only
old starlight grieving, run, through
waste and void, through empty space, run,
run, run on


and even though
there is peace here, in the space between stars
in the gentleness of absence and the
tracks of silent light,

out beyond the filaments of noisy galaxies
beyond the clouds of hydrogen and the eyes of telescopes
run, i run, i run






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