The Sun As An Empath
Whoever left the Sun in charge of light was a wishful thinker
The Sun burns skulls examining
Traumatized by every drop of blood steaming away
The sun shines deep his bawdy light into shrewd strangers
John Wayne shooting from the hip
Haloed like no other Buffalo Bill with a shine
Peeking through the transom of his garage door
To see Not to do To understand what happened and why
And this is the failure of the gambit Sun’s little empath hat
Shrouded everywhere with too much gas
Earth thinks it started
When he visited the escape game galaxy
Searching so bright He burned through every wall Could not participate
With the other bodies Even in simulacra
He spread his rays wide searching
A single finite entity to cool his fever pitch
Fixed on a single point His gaze burns ambient bodies
Whole planets freeze in the shade of those sunspots
Ryan Bollenbach is a writer and musician living in Houston, Texas. He formerly served as the poetry editor for Black Warrior Review in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He is the online fiction editor for Gulf Coast and reads poetry and prose for Heavy Feather Review. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Tarpaulin Sky Magazine, Sink Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Snail Trail Press, and elsewhere. Reach out on Twitter @SilentAsIAm or visit his website.