Exhausted 3/14/03
I lay down beside
the base of a tree,
shrink down from exhaustion
and start to relieve.
What if I could shrink
myself so I could see
what’s in that place?
I would crawl
through the muck,
the black soot
of fires past,
through the passage
with it’s twists and turns
to a chamber
of rising floor
pressing contents
up, up, up,
toward their
dynamite demise.
If I’m lucky
I will squeeze through
the tiny portal
in the ceiling.
Such good fortune
it would be,
such perfect timing.
I would see
a mess of spinning
gears and chains,
yet this is only –
a dead end.
Back to the room
with the rising floor,
I can’t just walk in
like I did once before.
I must jump—
down
and slip to the other
hole in the ceiling
if I want to escape
through its tubes
and its lines and its
gates.
What is this,
what is it that I see?
A monumental cavern
with poison moat
surrounds me.
I must climb to the top
Where the hole looks to open.
How I will get there
Is a whole other question.
Slippery walls stare
me straight in the face.
I cannot image how to get
out of this place.
I can see the outside,
the world I belong.
I cannot stand
to be here for one
moment too long,
for my nose
starts to run,
my eyes start to burn;
shedding tears of longing
of fear or of toxin
I am not quite sure.
But I know I must
get myself out.
Determination alone
will not help me here.
Somebody, please help!
Me head shakes left,
then right and then back.
I hear a soft voice
says it’s time to wake up.
My venom-soaked eyes,
they open so slowly.
I look to the left,
to the right, it’s below me:
A machine with its
bright colored plastic and metal
has been the object
of this dream filled with fright.
Who would have ever
dreamt of climbing into
the pipe of a shiny
new dirt bike?
-Matthew Harri
Crawling into the exhaust pipe of a bike is not so far-fetched when you have just finished a race and are so tired that you actually think about things like that!
