spiral despair
rif(f)ling through the trash
rummaging through the detritus
perimeters, delimiters,
we rage through time and distance
the memories well up untold
unbidden

spin, spill, spiral, spite
the damage done
no rest for the weary
no respite for the despairing
and all the love in the world
like a river flows around me

in avoidance
in repugnance

the tree roots dessicated
impenetrable granite
slowly eroding with the passing time

dead beyond all saving
and still we draw breath involuntarily
nothing but meat
reduced to machinery
electric shocks
sinews tighten
the desecration of a corpse

is it just the cloud cover?
the unending grey?
the swords unsheathed
banners unfurled?

the songs and the minstrelry?
and four months, four years
a decade, a lifetime, an epoch?
crumbling, fading,
scratches across the glass
scrapes against the wall
the skritch-skritch of a dull pencil
writing furtively on a paper scrap

call this not confusion
feigning, deigning, reigning
chaos
emptiness
spewed forth
like evisceration
like an augury
entrails dripping down the sides of the dishes
sleeps with the fishes

we can sing about destiny all we want
radioactive, alternative, meta-organic
the tide flows in, the tide flows out

we can sing about fate and fatality
and about hate and intransigence

there was a time
(quickly fading from my memory)
when the sea was all I ever needed
all I ever wanted
and that moment lapses
like a hiccup
a barely suppressed cough
the unsneezed sneeze

love lost, beyond all recovery
like receding starlight
leaving me with the cold emptiness
of this dying universe