i smile against the mushroom cloud
the dark fogs fear my steel-tipped laughter

and still
they knock him down again
(and by him I mean me of course)
and they beat him
and call him foul names in booming ugly voices
and they rip his clothes
and tear his hair out

all the time shouting evil secrets that no sane ear can hold
all the while spinning in tighter circles
until
at the end
the vultures round wound
and down fell the dusk sun to evening

I still kick against the walls
I never learned it from my mother,
how
to stop.
to stop kicking against the womb that nurtures you
to stop ripping out the strings that bind you to the heart of the world

All I have left to kick with now though,
Back-broken and tired old man as I am,
All I have left are these few chuckles
Precious shells in my gun,
Blasted ever outward
A star consuming the universe

i wake up sometimes
thinking perhaps there was a different me
or would have been
if i hadn’t bashed his brains out
if i hadn’t broken his heart
and taken his dignity
and dragged it through the streets, bloody

but every time i think it
i grow older and older
and the me i see is older
sometimes wiser
sometimes worse

and of course you try to better yourself
and of course you lift your neighbors up
and of course you smile when you are tired
when you are right, but she needs to win
and you are smarter,
but too chicken to speak up
and you are tougher
but rougher too
so far that they think you a buffoon
or worse, a bore

when you are up and down and sideways twisted,
when you are blistered tongued and feeble
when you are so angry the fear no longer stops you,
overwhelmed by the underwhelming everywhere
i will lift you up, i tell myself
i will lift you up

if there is one thing we should learn from Buddhism it is
that nothing ever ends

the dead come back,
resurrected as the selves they strove so hard to create

the clouds fly on with the carelessness of well fed birds

the rain washes into gutters
and rivers
and swimming pools
and over the faces of dogs
and under the feet of the wicked

and you and I
again and again
will wake to new surprises

and all our carefully tended gardens will grow wild
and all our well oiled machines will grumble and grind down
and all our enemies will eventually impress us
and friends will lift us up and let us down
tortured yo-yos on a string that never fully unravels

and this makes life at once both terrifying and exciting

the darkest cave has holes we can wind through
the deepest well has cracked walls we can claw against
as we lift and scurry and tumble
and try to stand still as the world spins and the crows mock us

but we forget

we watch the second hand tick so regularly
along the patterns of our watches
so carefully drawn in parallel lines

as if every moment could be measured against every other
and a first kiss could be compared to a simple breath taken while sleeping
because both take just a moment

and when fate lifts us we see a world full of heavenly mountains
and when fate drops us we see only endless craters
as if we’ve awoken on the moon

and we fear every day will hold more of the same
and all our dreams will drain away
below the earth to the land of forgotten yesterdays

but nothing ever ends

if we just sit still and calm
a rock in a stream
the sun will paint us in a million colors in the span of a day
the trees will serenade us with a symphony
of gusts
and still moments
and muted sounds
and glaring angry noises

and if I hold your hand and close my eyes
the atoms that make a simple piece of a simple man
will tingle with a thousand joys undiscovered to the rushed and the preoccupied

it will get better
and worse
and unbearably bad
and undeniably joyous

and you and I will see it all
never ending
never fully settled
but never trapped either

so hold me now
in the midst of this infinite chaos
and feel the strings in our hearts
stretched to what feels like breaking
plucked by fate
so they can resonate with the joyous music of a life lived in the world