Sad Height*

by Michael Aaron Casares

Wind sweeps over the sullen
city as rats rampant, reside
in the streets and cracked buildings.
The wind pushes passed our dwellings,
mere boxes painted and carved to taste–
our foundations feed fleas and termites!
Our home the food and fodder of a meeker
being. Roaches, scared, they scamper,
carrying the memory of the world inside
their mind. Roaches, wise men of old
cry out, “Waste no compassion on these
separate dead!”
Separate in a unity that binds
us in stagnate desperation, a notion
bound, a truth be told:
it is in our boxes we learn,
in being bound, we are separate
to each other. It is in these hidden
truths the subtle lies have disguised
the idea of the individual. We are a
homogenous routine that ticks
like a clock. Our life an open
book upon a screen, predictable
and designed to be shelved away
with the other thoughts that would
otherwise dissolve the illusions
we defend as our reality.
“Waste no compassion,” he says,
“waste nothing on these separate dead
for they are lost among the fallen
as the wind passes them by,
and they are fast asleep as
the wind leaves them behind.”


*from "The Terrorist" Virgogray Press, 2009