By: Josh Pryer
Nothing happens. Nobody comes. Nobody goes. —Waiting for Godot I. 4
Only an ugly tree rises above the snow, and every beautiful thing below dies politely out of sight. All around is dead color, bright absence in white, the loneliness spilled for purity, and the evening is very red. Grundy says clouds fill with the blood of the day’s dead. The more death, the more beauty in a sunset. Solomon says horses charge without fear, or with a greater fear of what they carry, or horses believe in God. The evening is very red. Buried on Sunday Died on Saturday In the distance, a formless figure walks toward the scene but is never any closer and remains whatever the scene wants it to be. Here comes black. II. 3
The scene cannot move as fall creeps into every corner and pulls on every clutching root. So it goes that the wind arrives in fragments, brings foreign gossip of eternity from serious animals with ironed sleeves. But there is no tea time here. Grundy says there are no deceptive smiles in this place, only blunt teeth. Fear the restless tongues. Solomon says look. It isn’t pretty but it’s been pierced by many eyes, like a crow pinned against a hard sky. There is no tea time here. Grew worse on Friday Took ill on Thursday Balding branches scrape the passing air, grasp nothing but leave marks. The afternoon starts to stink. Grass rusts. III.2
The sun throws glares at trying eyes and blurs the rutted path. Here the bodies have no names. Here water and dry rock sound the same. Something says something. Something else says something. Married on Wednesday Christened on Tuesday The ground is hot with many shadows but no shade. The image cracks. IV.1
This was a leafless tree This was a fruitless tree 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 New life is startling Whose broken jaw is born by the bite of an unanswered question? “Speak to — speak!” Born on Monday Solomon Grundy Who presses an ear against the wall and hears the world drag its claws, again and again, down the other side?
Josh Pryer is an American musician and poet. His poems has been published previously in The Esthetic Apostle, Mannequin Haus, and Boned. Pryer lives in Los Angeles, CA, and currently he is earning a degree in Comparative Literature.