Poem

The thoughts that follow…

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Crossing the unfeeling surface of this
                        ugly city,
lost in broken reveries &
                        the sophistry
of melancholy without origin,

thought begins
to blend into visceral abstraction:

the nausea of a simple creature
wanting only to know why it knows it
                        must suffer.

Wouldn’t it be better
not to think at all,
    to be
        
innocent & free

from the thoughts that follow
    the hollow feeling
        that everything

is meaningless?

                        …but meaning is a concept,

one of thought’s
        many children,
so without thought
            there would be no concept
                of meaning to be lost…

through a clumsy succession of steps I
                        try to accept
that the words bring this suffering & yet
are the only source of my salvation:

no affirmation without negation;

                        nothing is something,
            & something
                is nothing
without opposition…

this is what brings me back to a fleeting
            consolation,
        my one broken prize;
a thought
        that isn’t mine:

the tree is really rooted in the sky*;
    it is the light
falling continually from above
that provides
        the energy
needed
    to defy gravity,

by finding it’s way upwards while
sending roots
    deep into
        the earth.

* Human Personality – Simone Weil

Melancholia

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All these years;
the days spent waiting,
        hours just staring

at the walls.

All these years
of blunted & fading,
        wasted & wasting

melancholia…

I push my hands against the sides
of my skull & somehow
        somewhere between them

words form
& disappear…

Rivers of Gold

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For S.

Fading embers still remember the fire,
        & I remember
            soft summer air
& the thought of wildflowers,

when your serene,
        iridescent green eyes
            first smiled at me:

when first I found serenity
        in those rivers of gold,
            cascading down your shoulders…

Never let me forget…

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For S

Never let me forget
how much
I wanted to forget
the way you looked when I left you in bed
this morning,
to face the dawn & the dawning
knowledge that the futile elegance of
transcendent vision
allowing us to see
the meaningless mystery
of everything,
means nothing to me
compared to you.

As every breath in my lungs
pulled like wet leaves through mud,
you looked
so beautifully
at peace:

a rare orchid on the far shore of sleep…

In that moment
knowing
I had to tear myself away from you
only to throw myself into
the world where bullshit reigns supreme,
felt like a betrayal
because I forced myself
to forget:

Forgive me.
It was the only way
I could make myself leave the bed;
leave the island of peace
where our bodies press together,
to travel across the filthy sea
of the city
that doesn’t give a fuck about you or me
– or anybody at all –
to work for the wealth of others,
so that we can sleep beneath
a roof & between warm walls;
& we
can eat without the need
to raid bins to survive, & I
can return to you again.

So never let me forget that this human world we live in
is disgusting
& you
are the only reason
I remain within it.

The City at Night

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The City at night smells like memory & life to you.

Only in the right places, of course.

It smells like youth,
like fantasies of endless abandon.

Especially when it's just rained.

You don't know the names
of the chemicals & materials
that constitute this smell.

You know only why you find
so much delight
in such a slight thing:

Once, a long time ago, you would roam
the luminescent concrete pathways
of the City & you were free.

Liberated from the wrong kind of eyes & noise,
you found a place where
the rules were different,
 
where you had just enough money,
& just enough friends,
to create a sense of excitement…

but now you're older, &
                       everything has changed.

Somehow all those nights came to an end
& you're left with nothing
but soft-edged memories.

All the minor details,
                      once so sharp &
bright
you held them tight
to protected them
like diamonds,
              have faded;

the beginning has become
only the fragment of a dream.

Freedom has changed:

obligation replaced attachment
& left you with only
a feeling of distance,

the strange sensation
that you are not what you once were,
the you are lost
& always have been.

Reason has fallen.

Yet stubbornly
still you cling to something
you cannot explain,
except to say:

"We all have dead & dying hopes & beliefs scattered about our feet…
but I refuse to believe that we cannot find the strength
to bury them; that one day we will find the strength
to begin again.

Fuck you if you don't believe

                            just watch me."