Jul 2022
late March, 2022
I found my heart inside a casket
hidden in a burial mound
like some ill begotten mongol khan which time forgot
fermenting on the furthest steppe
near the farthest rim
of outer darkness.
They call it a tumulus
a mound of earth and stone raised over a grave
or graves
I spent thirty some odd years
heaped on top of some thirty thousand thousand some odd incarnations
praying at the altar of the outer darkness-
and then…
I found my heart inside a casket
concealed inside of a pine wood cube - hammered shut with copper nails,
some made of scrap metal, various alloys
6 heaps of chain link
buried in the badlands
47 cents a pound
I pried open the lid with a twelve pound claw hammer
bad hands trying to catch a falling knife
copper penny nails
flying through the air
glinting off of the dakota winter sun
like copper drops of rain
or six heaps of chain link
or a thousand handfuls of cracked rice
heaved into the matrimony skies.
like a dowry full of penny nails.
20 hours deep inside a drunk tank,
Columbia County Jail, Lake City, Fl -
somewhere near the Georgia border.
“I wouldn’ be doin’ that son, could be bad for your health!”
was the kind reply I was given by a guard
was the verbal response i heard
stretched out and tanned over a deep southern drawl;
a southern dialect only three degrees above pigeon english.
I had been pounding on the doors and the walls and the windows.
“LET ME THE **** OUT OF HERE!!!”
was the tune I played upon the flute and timbrel
was the serenade I sung for the unholy guards of the graveyard shift
I was standing there
praying there
pacing there
back and forth there
suicide watch
screaming there,
shivering in a turtle suit.
That was a long time ago.
The northern Florida Sun shown
white hot like molten iron alloys
hammered flat across an anvil
northern Florida sand
bakeoven hot beneath my bare feet
walking my shirtless sunburned skin to the state store
malt liquor
microwaved baking soda
30 milligrams of percocet
Wild Irish Rose
top ramen and eggs
breakfast lunch and dinner
every single night.
we were spinning and smoking so hard
we couldn't feel all the Wild Irish Thorns
cutting up our throats.
scared my dad so bad he took the next red eye down.
following morning he's walking right through the trailer door.
I was sitting there
on the couch there
with the dog there
in the dark there
10 hours deep inside an acid trip
he booked clear to the back
took a B-line for the family bible
he had given me to keep safe.
life uses many gears and levers to gauge the measure of a man.
Leather binding and the book of Leviticus all chewed half to hell.
The dog wasn’t to be blamed.
Six weeks this side of the dope sickness blues
and i’ve never seen such disappointment on a man’s face.
The grass outside the side window was covered in the morning dew;
glassy
like gray-blue ice
gleaming and
steaming in the
hot iron
northern Florida sun.
We buried our hearts in a pine wood box
beneath the basement of a rail station freight house
converted some time ago
into a single family home
nestled in the blue ridge
south of the Poconos
in the shadow of a slate hill
Slate belt, Eastern PA.
Sometimes it's easier that way
laying motionless in the dark.
Where only the pulse
of the blood
in my neck
would betray the fact
that I wasn’t just a wax statue.
By: Jordan Gee
I found my heart inside a casket
hidden in a burial mound
like some ill begotten mongol khan which time forgot
fermenting on the furthest steppe
near the farthest rim
of outer darkness.
They call it a tumulus
a mound of earth and stone raised over a grave
or graves
I spent thirty some odd years
heaped on top of some thirty thousand thousand some odd incarnations
praying at the altar of the outer darkness-
and then…
I found my heart inside a casket
concealed inside of a pine wood cube - hammered shut with copper nails,
some made of scrap metal, various alloys
6 heaps of chain link
buried in the badlands
47 cents a pound
I pried open the lid with a twelve pound claw hammer
bad hands trying to catch a falling knife
copper penny nails
flying through the air
glinting off of the dakota winter sun
like copper drops of rain
or six heaps of chain link
or a thousand handfuls of cracked rice
heaved into the matrimony skies.
like a dowry full of penny nails.
20 hours deep inside a drunk tank,
Columbia County Jail, Lake City, Fl -
somewhere near the Georgia border.
“I wouldn’ be doin’ that son, could be bad for your health!”
was the kind reply I was given by a guard
was the verbal response i heard
stretched out and tanned over a deep southern drawl;
a southern dialect only three degrees above pigeon english.
I had been pounding on the doors and the walls and the windows.
“LET ME THE **** OUT OF HERE!!!”
was the tune I played upon the flute and timbrel
was the serenade I sung for the unholy guards of the graveyard shift
I was standing there
praying there
pacing there
back and forth there
suicide watch
screaming there,
shivering in a turtle suit.
That was a long time ago.
The northern Florida Sun shown
white hot like molten iron alloys
hammered flat across an anvil
northern Florida sand
bakeoven hot beneath my bare feet
walking my shirtless sunburned skin to the state store
malt liquor
microwaved baking soda
30 milligrams of percocet
Wild Irish Rose
top ramen and eggs
breakfast lunch and dinner
every single night.
we were spinning and smoking so hard
we couldn't feel all the Wild Irish Thorns
cutting up our throats.
scared my dad so bad he took the next red eye down.
following morning he's walking right through the trailer door.
I was sitting there
on the couch there
with the dog there
in the dark there
10 hours deep inside an acid trip
he booked clear to the back
took a B-line for the family bible
he had given me to keep safe.
life uses many gears and levers to gauge the measure of a man.
Leather binding and the book of Leviticus all chewed half to hell.
The dog wasn’t to be blamed.
Six weeks this side of the dope sickness blues
and i’ve never seen such disappointment on a man’s face.
The grass outside the side window was covered in the morning dew;
glassy
like gray-blue ice
gleaming and
steaming in the
hot iron
northern Florida sun.
We buried our hearts in a pine wood box
beneath the basement of a rail station freight house
converted some time ago
into a single family home
nestled in the blue ridge
south of the Poconos
in the shadow of a slate hill
Slate belt, Eastern PA.
Sometimes it's easier that way
laying motionless in the dark.
Where only the pulse
of the blood
in my neck
would betray the fact
that I wasn’t just a wax statue.
By: Jordan Gee
