Open Wire - Electric Bard & Ned Loh

The collar pin bites sharp against the collarbone Hands buried in a jacket that I do not own The ribcage rattles like a shingle in a gale Each visage cut from granite, distant, bleached, and pale No fluency in dialects they toss and trade I linger near the exit where the planks degrade A fever wakes behind the ribs before the drivers hit Ascending through the leather soles to where the shadows sit Dreading to be recognized, dreading to remain The hunger for communion tugs and rattles on the chain The Live Wire Hums In Open Space Without A Floor! We Leap Across The Ledge And Shake The Iron At The Door! You Fear You Stand Too Slender For The Chamber's Heavy Cry! The Current Seizes In The Throat And Drags The Body High! A stranger shifts three inches left to grant a sliver wide An elbow grazes sodden wool where hidden currents glide No syllables exchanged across the pounding of the floor Just sudden heavy presence waking through the marrow core Tomorrow morning turns the brass latch from the outer gate Tonight ten minutes burn alive to challenge brittle fate Decades spent in silence where the corner shadows creep Hours spent rehearsing lines the morning cannot keep Dissolving in the crowded dark without a wall or stay Unready and inadequate, but throwing dread away Forgiving every tremor in the fingers and the wrist Accepting every desperate plea that struggled to exist The Live Wire Hums In Open Space Without A Floor! We Leap Across The Ledge And Shake The Iron At The Door! You Fear You Stand Too Slender For The Chamber's Heavy Cry! The Current Seizes In The Throat And Drags The Body High! The circuit bridges cleanly through the empty open space A single breath held steady in the center of the place Clear the board Trip the catch The pulse returns to strike a match And Drags The Body High! And Drags The Body High!