All Gods die a quiet death.
Only silence survives when nothing is left.
In the struggle of existence,
even the winners have to lose.
The odds are always against us,
no matter which side of the line we choose.
Martyrs mistake dreams for pretence,
but nothing exists that makes any sense:
Just pretty pictures to paint over & protect.
Somehow, at 6 a.m,
or whenever it is
that the Sun returns again,
the taste & the smell
of the air hitting at the back
of my throat, always
fills me with hope.
Sometimes though
hope makes everything worse.
The Seagulls used to be Angels
according to a Nordic legend that
I probably don't understand.
They have become this way, it seems,
because we simply,
slowly
forgot about them.
& as I stand outside in the warm night
smoking,
I can hear them squawking
a seething, teeming mass of white feathers
& cold hard beaks poking at discarded
styrofoam chip boxes,
ketchup packets
& chicken bones:
all the detritus out here by the coast
in one of so many forgotten towns…
The thought that these
strangely mechanical seeming
beasts could once have been
our sublime idols seems oddly appropriate:
Now that we have
desire as disposable convenience
what need do we have
for the Magnificat;
for prayer or pilgrimage,
supplication, meditation & incense
or any attempt, no matter how naive
to transcend the brutish fact
of materiality;
existence & mortality?
So the seagulls scrabble among our waste
like avian beggars, safe
only because wings bring freedom,
& ignored or else quietly despised
by the normal
& respectably employed,
like the homeless people
who hide & die
behind the houses
& in the filthy streets.
Dignity is denied to the forgotten.
Dragging behind you every decision
& memory:
a ragged procession
of skeletal marionettes;
decaying bones hanging limp from
myriad strings,
they dance the maudlin, shambolic
parade of your existence:
the weak blue
deep blue
hollow
fallow
moment
after
moment.
The grass is no greener on the other side,
no matter what they say
& stomachs like ours can’t digest it anyway.
Whether we’re more poster-children
for just another trend
we’re still just children.
I guess that’s why its so easy to hate
& why black & white look better than grey.
But easy doesn’t leave a trace,
can’t keep that fear at bay…
not one of us is exempt.
Whatever consequence
you want to call god or
karma or claim as the fault of others,
only we can face the danger of freedom;
only we can fight the terror of existence,
but I cannot do it alone.
So
will you join me?
Words for Ghosts 