Balham

we slept in the tunnel

and were the last to know

it was to be made a river.

everyone who'd gone mad

everyone had been moved

a quarter inch. 

this is why you can't listen to snakes,

and screw them frogs!

I can hear them...um..um..

i couldn't finish listening, feeling dark

a warm wet towel over your head

this is nothing to panic over.

i began to think there was nothing

above but

the owl serenely bodysnatching

her crosshatching eye

turning in the skin,

takes aim.

she feels the warmth of me 

right through the city-floor.

anchoring the present, the speed and inconsistency of each breath, are radioed, nationalized lists of closings,

collapse, and obituary. the voices become dry, burnt, cracking their arms of boneless hope-slogans.

of course they aren't here. chin up! i wish the wire were cut. i could finish listening

for the ocean to come whistle through our little capillary and float us to the surface-

if there's blood on the floor

we have to shut down...

regret grace.

throw it out.

this is just a draft.

inching towards abandonment all along,

we knew this would never work.

all the fault you can carry- 

there's truth in the patterns

cutting apart the sky.

after a favorable wartime seizure

one voice is ghosting-

"but I am still here!

bomb down, chin up!"

react normally.