february 2020

...step into another person’s mind

and you will see their wilderness become your own

you will stand a stranger

and watch as existence moves

down its list of anecdotes

to where women gave birth

amid piles of garbage

to where plastic roses

were left on a child’s face

and where, further down

the truth long ago turned liquid

and memory itself was poured into a glass

so thus have we all

become each other’s prisoner

outsiders standing alert in each other’s mind

watching those wild, untamed places

cluttered with anecdotes

existence finally crossing you off its list

as just another rose, just another face

another irrelevance...

                         (ii)

...I have arrived at the insurmountable

the hypnotic citadel

a trance-like edifice

that ignites when touched

that gleams with intuition

with the immensity of the truth

visceral, raw and unmatched

the ecstasy which lies, all-consuming

even beneath our fingernails

even in the very breath

with which we surround the earth

this painless fire

this joy that, at long last, is free of mankind

the citadel rising like blindness

dissolving all it sees

its darkness unmatched

its mirrors insurmountable

reaching even further beyond the truth

to encircle even the earth

with more than just life...

                            (iii)

...there is no immaculate symmetry in death, no perfection

throw your bones across the floor

and they will rise as nightmares

vulvas yelling obscenities

an insane phantasmagoria

that never, ever stops

pushing your eyes

even deeper into your skull

forcing your soul to shed its skin

to have its own raw light ripped away

revealing the uncertainty

of ever having lived at all

that’s why these bones

have never stopped rising

have never stopped screaming

that evil also has its symmetry

its obscene perfection

why else are your palms

so deeply creased

so unsure of ever having lived...