W. Davis Traven

S.C. Johnson Wax



Flee streetward
and trip 
in splintered wood and gravel 
shriek 
a bloodied shriek
slipping
elbow deep
in coffee-colored pits 
of muddy rainwater
gazing out 
across
encroachment 
dead grass
the post office 
and diner
sidewalk 
brick lined walks
banks and cafes  
bakeries
liquor stores 
the tailor’s
and watchmaker's
all dark by 9
skirt the edges 
of bright haloes
pooled on the ground
while wearing
the haunted 
dazed
expression
of the fool
trapped
behind
iron wrought or dull chain 
dividers
black pitched roofs 
send smoke
as far as the eye goes
concrete bloom 
and bust
unease
creeps the
deserted gray plains
though no one notices and
all of them 
keep
drifting through the 
dripping fog
repeating:
“I want to be free
release me”
the curious:
dissatisfied
may sit down at first light
exhausted 
and grieve for time 
slipped through the cracks
until finally bombarded
by ceaseless pangs
they run 
beneath the house
‘neath the porch
out into  
the cape
or bay
or neck
hurling book
and hex
wild-eyed 
under glass no more
shadows loosed
to run shudders
throughout
this world
and maybe the next

sinister
in the thick
soup of 
latest night
though finally
they sink
to the earth
incapable of 
assailing
their burden
to only weep
weak
lost 
defeated
raise their eyes heavenward
and written in mockingly large letters
across the sky:

BIRCHING PLAINTS GNAW FRESH SPIRIT HERE

heaving
in earnest 
rapt by spiteful fits 
we chase the beast
across
an endless string 
of annular days
to clutch but 
chaff of
spent moments
everything 
seeming
bent and wetted
for blitzkrieg
If there is no
distant
other
better 
place 
buried deep somewhere
within this  flickering realm
is there
any chance for
those who 
idly long to
one day shed 
these bacterial sleeves
and 
find some small measure of relief?

may we all  
be left to stare 
at the wall 
with no greater wish
than to self-destruct?
or be compelled 
to watch 
life 
be casually unsheathed
by 
the oblivious
the healthy
and well-scrubbed? 
is our singular consolation
knowing
they will all die away
someday
seething in their mother’s milk
screaming?

for now
I am content to
set a foot on the 
ground
to tap or swing
and drink
read
think
until I fall asleep 
in my favorite chair
and dream up
some sort of other terrible peace 


W. Davis Traven was born at 66° 0′ 0″ N, 34° 37′ 0″ E and spent much of his early childhood there. In his teens he began publishing the slapstick-nihilist periodical Ø, which is still published diurnally in Paraguay.  Currently he is head of surgery and poet laureate for the seizure ward at Yuasa-Exide General. Traven has just released his second memoir, Donde Son Las Dos Cucarachas from which this excerpt is reprinted without permission.