Coffee house philosoph
playing open chords on a hollow body,
knock off beats penning cynicisms
over poetry,
the shutter-speed-dealers and
faux-pigmenters sullenly sly-jiving pomp and prints
to sleep with easily impressed marks,
confusing ego and creativity...

The compost brings growth to the garden. Every rotting body
drags itself into the earth.

Cremation is for those afraid of their flesh falling to ribbons,
streaming through hairy grass,

a festival for the end of the day. The sun gives itself over to storms
to imagine the scoured face revealed

when the rain ends and, heat-kissed, the world steams into newness.
Rawness. Salt of the earth where nothing grows...

I.
I worry that like the Germans after
Hitler I will lull
myself
to
thinking
that things aren’t that
bad staying till all trains rattle deathwards...

We hope the dead reconcile
with the dead, so they may achieve
position among their peers.

May the student and the lady in a Stetson
make the same mistakes.
And the victim cross the street
side by side with his eternal executioner
without recognizing him.
Shadows or ghosts, both shall pass.

On the sidelines, the feast of the living...

If it became apparent that the world was about to end
some un-deflectable comet slung our way
from who knows where
or rising waters that won’t subside

I would make my way to where you live
and we would run off somewhere quiet
to see out the last day
together...