Sack as a Unit of Measurement
Sack of people
Burlap prison, scratching at the fiber
Sack of time
Leaking like water from a wicker basket
Sack of confusion
From the sack of people
Loitering and churning in dialect
Sack of things on the menu
Antipasti and primi so written
Where the eyes fall on the landing page
Really does a disservice to the secondi
A sack of unfairness to those
At the end of the order
Sack of money, something literal
I can understand, I can feel in my hands
Leads to a sack of leisure
A sack of consent to saw
Through the branches obscuring your
View of the blurring white light tunnel
That will take you from this mortal sack
To a sack of the beyond
Midas Itch
Add your own voice to the chorus
The heckling harmony
Shrieking oxygen-deprived squall
Pockets full of liquid smoke
Drenched denim from crotch to knee
A little capsaicin in the air, on your fingertips
Brings the burn with each careless touch
The Midas itch to join in, to be drowned out
Something off your chest and out of your lungs
In a few tiny words, specks of nothing on a clear canvas
Pale blue ozone to a pliant sense of worth
Bore drilling an entire mine and
Minting the whole lot in a matter
Of seconds that make you proud
Content for a moment
A cresting wet lip
Of the curling pocket of the wave
The want to be wet and happy and still
Does not diminish the presence
Of real monsters out there
Plotting and nibbling
Despite the noise, at the generative
Heart of the squall
Tundra Soft
Mirror-covered bed
Under a mirrored ceiling
Between walls tundra white
No transparent glass in the house, avoid the danger
Only shards of your own face if you break it all
First in anger, then in shame
Curious eyes reflected
Snow-blind to the madness
In the shark’s belly but with a broad smile
Gleaming pin in your teeth
Grenade in your hands
If you eat me, I end you
In an underwater poof of blood
And shards of shark flesh
For others to swarm to
In the sun-drenched blue abyss
Of the aftermath of a handshake
Between the voyeur in you
The want to see yourself
Eaten and digested by a perfect clone
And the streaks of mold on the bloody
Fresh coat of soft tundra snow
Intrepid Eyes
Doesn’t take much courage to keep breathing
Same can’t be said about keeping your eyes peeled
That recoil you can’t fake when you almost step on
A mangled pigeon with feathers all around
Or a pancaked toad with flies buzzing
Things decaying on concrete, at the mercy of
The appetites of passing pickers
Or mere inches away, the wormy teeth of the soil
We are hardwired endpoints not wanting for bandwidth
Free will cheat codes known to all, enacted by fewer
Love your routine when the day first settles in
Sick of it all by the time someone presses
The moon, the night’s daily watermark
And the dusk fades in, dawn taps out
Before you close your eyes
A vow to never look away
To plow through the carrion
To be more mindful of your breath
Doesn’t take much to seal it
So no grubby fingers, no squeamish gait
Can lead intrepid eyes astray
Too Minimal
If you keep it too minimal
It’s all just breaths and blinks
Hovering over a bed of stone
Inhale, exhale, grains of sand
In flight or in crevices
Taste of blood in your throat
Goes unexplained, in this wind
Tunnel of soft light and haze
When it’s this bare bones
A bookshelf with two books
One balanced on its binding
Soft cover, hard cover, dust
In the window light
If you keep it too minimal
They will just doze off
Nobody wants to hover
Forever
Nobody wants to listen
To breaths neither
First nor last
*****
Photography Credit: Jake Onyett
Jake Onyett is a poet and U.S. Navy veteran who was born in Canada, raised in the United States, and currently lives in Italy. When not writing poetry, Jake can be found seated and working, hiking in the Alps with his family, exclusively reading non-fiction for long periods before exclusively reading fiction for longer periods, or plotting future meals.
