Version Four Thousand Two Hundred Twenty Three

OK, listen up.

I don’t want to have to write this

Same goddamn poem again and again

There are other things to do

Of much greater

Unimportance.

 

I have pushed and pushed

Like a mother giving birth timelessly

To the same ugly breech born baby

Blue from lack of air

Tearing at my flesh

Over

And over.

 

Crept and cried at the door

Of experience

Rarely realizing that both sides

Were the same.

 

Awakened from fantastical dreams

But failed to harvest the crop

Letting weeds grow instead

Go to seed

Milkweed and mullein

The more beautiful to me

For their striving.

  

    If you want to know

    Man’s future

    Ask the crows.

 

As for me,

Society has no hold

Nor will I bow

To a king.

I reserve my allegiance

For those I have supped with

By the fire.

  

I have been out dancing

With the stars

In the far field.

To come back to the messy world

Of anxious inconsolable humanity

Requires a concentration

That evades me.

  

    I play

    Like a child

    With pretty stones.

 

What do you suggest

My fair friend?

I have helped the stranger

Hurt those I loved

Addressed the room

And hidden my face

While alone.

 

Sat at sumptuous tables,

The next night dined

On beans and bone.

Left lovers in the dark

For the solitude of sky,

Played at dice and darts

Against the grim angels themselves.

 

Listened to fools repeat themselves.

Sat at the feet of purported masters,

Smiled at the joke.

Some of us spoke to small folk

On the mountain.

So what would you have me do?

  

    The leaf will always fall

    Until the tree

    Is gone.

  

Please don’t misunderstand.

I hope to live

Until the spirit can’t be summoned

By a sunset or the moon

Or a woman’s round bottom

Or a whiff of skunk on the breeze at dusk.

These are no suicide notes.

 

Selfishly or not of course

Is all perspective,

Just another word for

Distance from the object

Affectioned or reviled.

No two orbits

The same.

 

The air is cold outside tonight

Only a few more days until spring

Wraps green arms around us all.

My father the sun

Accepts again our offerings,

Our faces raised,

Our throats exposed.

  

    Watching her sleep

    My heart and mind

    Made sad love.

 

But stop a moment and listen.

When I pass,

And I will pass,

I hope to walk away quickly with a wave

Over my shoulder

And no long goodbyes.

 

We had years for this

And for that,

Now we have only

What we have always claimed.

This moment.

  

There is to be no culmination

Of thought no

Do-over-wrought

Manifesto

No word-wracked

Xplanatations.

 

We will either see each other later

Or we won’t.

If you say yes, I will

Go along with you

And not even mention

The evidence.

 

    The fly on my sandwich

    Saw god’s face, multiplied,

    Yet like me, lived.

  

So listen.

Close your eyes,

Hold in breath,

Push your soul

Through the top of your head

And feel the silver pour.

  

Even now tears wet my face

But not for losses incurred

Nor my many failings of both

Flesh and spirit.

I have just wasted too much

Damned life with a pen

Or my dick in my hand.

To finally write a two-word poem.

 

    Ineffable.

    Unutterable.