after Ezra Pound*

Fly, my songs,
to both young and old.

Sing only the true
and beautiful things.

Do not betray me
as the lost
and lonely loser
I have become.

After the Big War,
his uncles came home
(some of them)
different men but
bearing souvenirs
of devastation.

One was a rifle,
a Karabiner-98,
with stains of death
on its wooden stock.

His uncle wouldn't say
just how he got it.

When his uncle died,
the weapon came to him.

It spoke to him
of glory and bravery.

He was proud to hold
that dead German's gun.

Not many years later,
he returned, shattered,
from his own war.

His only souvenirs
burned in his head.

One *** shrouded night
he tossed the rifle into
the Susquehanna River.

Never again did he
own another weapon.

Comes a time for the
circle to be broken.

When they were sixteen,
his second cousin Jenny
was a full on white trash
Siren with ice pick *******
and alluring, famished eyes.

She was a dream within
a ******* within reach;

a succulent Succubus.

Jenny was a danger and
temptation to gaze upon
because they were only
sixteen and only
second cousins and
she already knew what
power lurked between
her fervid thighs.

At forty, she was just
another dead **** head.

Some girls just seem
to grow up early.

At the end of the road is the road...*

I used to live in a town,
but all that remains
is empty storefronts
and peopleless porches,
hardly a community.

Strangers on the streets
do not know their
neighbors and never will.

The woods and creek banks
where I hunted pheasants
and fished for trout
are overgrown now
with McMansions full
of bloated consumers.

All the orchards grow
houses instead of fruit.

The only country left is
corn and soybean fields,
slathered in pesticides,
about as natural as ******.

Now it is two towns,
the one remembered,
and the one that is.

I live in the latter,
but prefer the former.

I would leave, but
six years ago I fell
into a man-trap and
haven’t figured out
how to escape yet.

Not that it much matters.

We all end up exactly
where we are.

****,
I am cold,
and I want
to hibernate
for a very
long time.
Maybe even
forever.

Death dropped by last night.

I never expect him, but he was lonely and I was available.

What’s up, I asked.

Same old ****, he said. You have no idea how hard this job is. Absolutely no one wants to see me. Ever.

Must be lonely.

Lonely, he said, you can’t imagine! Most of them die as soon as they see me.

Do you know hard that makes it to have a meaningful relationship? Or even get a date?

Death lit a cigarette, unafraid.

Oh, I can imagine.

Well, let me tell you; it’s ****** frustrating. Sometimes, I’d just like to cuddle, but I’m not into corpses. Yuck.

Death isn’t much of a conversationalist. Mostly he just whines. It’s all about him. He tends to ramble.

I just quietly let him talk. He did.

Have to be going, he said finally. Must meet the soon to be dead. Rush, rush, rush… and Santa Claus thinks he has it bad. Thanks for listening. See you soon.

No hurry, I replied.

I swear his missing lips smiled as he turned and left.

It took a while before I realized what I had just been spared.

Sometimes, it pays to be a good listener.

lost
  too long now
   for anyone
    to remember
my mouth

a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush…*
Exodous 3:2

My love
you are a match
that sparks.

Your legs
are fireworks;
your thighs
speak promises;
your arms
hold wonders;
your dress
opens into
paradise;
your face,
a fanfare
of light.

You ignite
this needy 
old body
once more.

It explodes
and I burn
like the Bush.

Holy fire.

Omnis in hic sum...*

Writers write to understand. Axiom.
But time worries ever onward.
Alchemists in a dungeon. Thinking magick.
Realistically demanding the impossible.
Trying to tell what must not be told.
Feeling things not understood.
First, last, in between, without end.
Things intuited, not comprehended.
Spectacular. Ordinary. Ecstatic. Troubled.
Listening to humanity’s sad, silent music.
Struggling to be worthy of themselves.
Practicing successive language experiments;
Cast in the dazzling fluidity of words.
Blowing life into this quintessence of dust.
Forever in a frenzied rush, for:
  Envious time doth ever slide.
  This single day is what they own.
  Tomorrow they may be denied.

What was a storm
here and there
has become a tsunami
of catastrophes.
We are subsumed
by flowing disaster.
We open futile umbrellas
or furiously doggy paddle
to stay dry and afloat
without result.
The Ten Day Forecast
calls for doom, gloom,
and genocide with
a sprinkling of famine,
war, and pestilence.
Turn on the news,
everywhere the waters rise.
Sixty-five million refugees
bob upon the swells.
Compassion founders
like a  rusty ship.
Simple decency
takes a dive.
Don’t bother to
hold your breath.
Morally speaking,
we are all
fundamentally sunk.

Circus to close after 149 years*

Speaking of apocalypses,
this current model is a yawn.

A large, loud golden retriever
barks out random orders
and fear collapses the world
like a wet tent or used ******.

People scream in the streets,
but facts remain few and unlikely.

A big chunk of reality is missing.

Even the elephants are confused.

You’ll never make a show out of that.

ex uno plures

The earth quakes, roils, groans  and trembles.
The ****** minded mob rumbles and roars.
The *** itself has melted into chaos.
One devolved into many. Fractious factions.
Deaf falcons stray awaiting further orders.
Dissonant screams rend the unsettled night.
A plague on both our houses and none immune.
Commonwealth collapsed. Polity in ruins.
In a Republic of dreams and visions, now
civil blood doth make civil hands unclean.
Colors chosen, two gangs spew discord.
Everybody shouts, *which side are you on?
  Weapons of fear fill every angry hand;
  against itself, a land divided cannot stand.

or, a few reasons I left Facebook*

Sick of: conflict, bigotry,
inanity, politics
(of all persuasions);
cat memes, dog memes,
memes in general;
kids and grandkids
I don’t even know;
people who prefer
animals to people;
delight in ignorance,
people who won’t,
or can’t, read anything
longer than five lines;
having to consider
everyone’s feelings
all the time, which
is just another form
of self-censorship;
losing friends in
the real world over
mere comments
in the virtual world;
increasingly intrusive ads,
and the fact that I hate
punk, puke billionaires
like Mark Zuckerberg.
I could go on but
everyone has their
own, personal lists
so why bother?

If only, on that fateful day,
my Draft Board had been on LSD.

They might have sent me to Wonderland
to explain croquet and the proper pouring of tea;

they might have sent me to OZ
to get into Dorothy's pants or train flying monkeys;

they might have sent me to Hogwarts
to get an advanced degree in something useful;

they might have sent me to Narnia
in search of ****** pelts and talking mice;

they might have sent me to Never Land
to counsel Captain Hook on anger management;

but no, instead, imagination failed utterly,
and those patriotic imbeciles sent me to Vietnam.

If only, on that fateful day,
my Draft Board had been on LSD.

an anarchist’s style guide...


Poems are liquid prose. Prose insists. Poems plead.
Kale tastes best in darkness. Residue of texture.
Texture makes the text. Don’t dress it up.
I is romantic vestige. Deport it. Feel the freedom.
Irony is literate decadence. Stick to sarcasm. Common voice.
Drumbeat of iambs in veins. Just the facts, Ma’am.
Edgy as opposed to hard. Violent refusal to respond.
Adjectives limited. Adverbs useless. Nouns just sit.
Ah, but verbs. Verbs as we are. *We are verbs. Creating.
Other parts, only utilitarian. Sequence of composition.
Words in a row marching like soldiers to certain death.
Metaphors compressed as diamonds. Regal and rusted.
The clock’s face reveals nothing. Blank chronology.
Humor provides shelter. Lear on the moor. Fool.
Lines in a stanza remain lines. Mere artifice.
Love is in and out of every door. Root of desire.
Say what you must as you must. Shout if you must.
Take whatever you like. Make it new. Make it new.
Feel noose around neck. Have the last word. Anyway.

The very young
like to believe
they will paint
their own lives.

To some degree,
this is true.

But many
loving hands
will touch
the brush

before the canvas
stands complete.

I’m a 65 year old white guy.
What could be more bland?

So, a little help here.

Dreadlocks? Man bun?
Floppy knit hipster hat?
Steam Punk shades?
A few visible tattoos?
Hajib scarf around neck?
Piercings? (But only painless.)
Purple hair? Perhaps pink?

Come on man. I’m struggling.

I want to change my
old cliché for a new one.

All advice considered.
Sadly, no payment.

for MA

Breeze through your
Augenblick* of a life
at ease in the world.

When your time comes,
drop like a ripe pear,

loving the earth that
fed it,
grateful to the tree that
birthed it,

content to rejoin the Cycles
as the Wheel spins on.

Be humble, you
are mortal flesh.
Be noble, you
own a brave heart.
Be joyful, you
have tasted the
sweetness of love.
Enjoy your life,
it is the vessel
that contains
these wonders.

my tongue in my cheek…

I despise the word relationship, singular and plural,
as it inevitably applies to swooning couples.

I’m old enough to remember the time
before Woody Allen made it a permanent part
of everybody’s everyday *lingua franca.

That was his truly heinous crime.

Finally, I have banished them from my life.

I can leave dishes unwashed for weeks,
sleep on the whole bed with all the covers,
allow the trash to grow into mounds,
and, best of all, never have to shave again.

I like not having to read anyone’s mind,
satisfy anyone’s endless, mysterious needs,
or do things I really do not want to do.

Selfish of me, surely, but such sweet relief.

Relationships mostly lead to too many
conversations, usurpations, explanations,
denunciations, recriminations, vivisections,
and, finally, to rancorous separations.

They are necessary for the romantic young
and for propagating the species, but
I am old and well past propagating.

I keep them lodged firmly in my past where
I can remember the best and forget the rest.

I prefer my cat, my books, solitude, silence,
microwave tacos, and peace of mind.

Hey, I’m not kidding about this!

And yet, there is the loneliness factor…

So I might welcome a companion who
was not desperately “seeking a relationship.”

But that is no woman I have ever met
and, I fear, no woman I ever will.

Canoodle away the daze.
Low productivity remains
sadly underpaid.
Dreams do not demand
To Do lists. As yet,
love requires no app.
Perhaps the world is dying
but green, green patches
remain in the shade.
Find a tree, see.
Take your love’s head
in your lap. Be glad
of time and hugs.
Glorify in achieving
that most perfect goal:
no goal at all.
Or one perfect kiss.
Clarity radiates from
exactly where you sit.
You can’t step in that
same stream even once.
Don’t try. Keep your lips
happy and your feet dry.

In any moment,
we become
different people,
born from
thawarted desire,
from what we lack.

Same vase,
different blossoms.

One life,
much need,
untold moments,
many variations,
familiar strangers
birthed within
one life.

Music hath charms...*

Our heart’s fingers
were never made
to play but one tune.

And so
we practice
songs of
joy, hate,
envy, jealousy,
empathy and
affection.

Wonderful and
terrible compositions.

Harmonic
intention
crashes into
dissonance.

Scores of love
and
scores to settle.

Simply sit down.

Don’t seek the Way,
you are already
on your way.

Just be present and
as you awaken,
the world awakens:

colors shout fragrance,
birds recite poetry,
breezes whisper caresses,
rivers of music flow.
light smells of hope.

Consider your past,
but do not dwell there;
consider your future,
but do not expect it.

Now is Is.

Peel away the squawking
layers of your heart
like an onion unwinding,
like a snake molting.

Approaching nothing,
you arrive at everything.

Do this until you think
you will vanish
and then vanish:

the more you lose,
the more you are.

Her eyes are
intoxicaitingly
limpid pools.
Dive in.
Frolic. Romp.
Revel.
Get drunk.
Then enjoy
the best
hangover
ever.

"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."*

The bullet that missed
on a sweltering 1972 day
remains the bullet
you fear the most,
the bullet still at large,
circling your life,
seeking a second chance
to lodge in your heart
that like all hearts
cannot stay lucky
forever.

The mundane world
must yield to imagination.
Eyes are not microscopes,
nor lips but for drinking.
Facts do not make a life;
events alone cannot explain
a single, beating human heart.
Nothing exists so basic that
it cannot be expanded and exploded
by whimsy and effort.
A butterfly is just an insect
until the tale teller awakens its potential;
a lover is just a lump of flesh
until a story renders her beautiful.
Our fictions generate a reality
beyond the dreary limitations of mere truth,
and truth is always mere,
always waiting for the magic touch of more.
Knowing only the particulars
amounts to knowing nothing.
Lift your hand to the world
like an astonished magician
and cast your soul’s spell,
ensorcell the ordinary;
lift your brush and paint a scene
with huge, wild brush strokes;
shout your words into the chaos,
bring about a new order,
a vivid, lush world,
a world that echoes, on and on…

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen."

Young, we understand
the world, but not ourselves.
Old, we understand
ourselves, but not the world.
Between falls the mysterious
and baffling substance
of our lives. Confusion
marks any real life
of consciousness.
Certainty is the lie
we believe in to smooth
the transition. Death
is the period that punctuates
the end of our sentence,
when we finally know
what we really know
in silence.

Life lasts but an hour
that cold winds devour;
all that we love and know
smashed by the winds that blow,
leaving nothing but the cold
to chill the still living old.
  Ashes, all that soon remain…

I was a teacher once.

My students seemed
like glittering
fantastical birds.

The girls flew and flashed
in their keen new beauty,

the boys perched sullenly
and stiff as boys seem
always wont to do.

I was a teacher observing
the flittering
ephemera of youth,

that one thing
we all remember
always

though it only
stays a little

before it is driven
by worry and the world
into memory

and flies away
into forever.

Kiss me Goddess.
I want your tongue
in my human mouth
filling it with words.
I want your breath
in my lonely lungs
inspiring me.
Haptic Lady,
I want your legs
around my waist
urging me to creation,
undulating ecstasy.
Make me dizzy
with your passion
and I will sing
your holy songs
to flawed creation.
Oh ****** Muse
of the holy body
and the broken,
profane heart,
come with me,
and laugh aloud
when you do.
We will name
our children poems
and send them
into the mortal world
where they will
walk in beauty
and make us proud.

Everything on this gelid morning speaks only dead languages.
Change your mind. Consider it a beguilingly blank canvas.
Slather it with the random pigments of your imagination.
Go for a stroll and practice random acts of sadistic charity.
Inhale the exquisite frondescence of naked branches.
Focus your neurons on everything you have forgotten.
******* incessantly to Mozart's Requiem. Honor his memory.
Unleash your nukes. Annihilate Canada. Destroy winter for good.
Make your lover a garland of cassowary feathers. Impress her.
Concentrate on growing horrifically profuse ***** hair.
Study the nonexistent texts of forgotten Uzbecki ascetics.
Raise fearsome armies of rabid Chinese lawn gnomes. Attack.
Try to knit String Theory while contemplating theoretical macramé.
Drink cider vinegar to defuse the carcinogenic dangers of politics.
Attempt to complete a peace treaty with gravity. Concede nothing.
Build a launch pad. Hurl rusting Ramblers into low earth orbit.
Collect ingredients. Home brew ******, absinthe and aphrodisiacs.
Test drive a luxury submarine in your neighbor's swimming pool.
Smash the endless contemporary Conga Line of Dumb. Think about it.
Surrender to uncommon sense for a change. Avoid the ordinary.
Give peace a chance. Endless war has left it lonely and depressed.
Admit that everyone is well and truly ******. Relax. Breathe.
Proclaim the advent of the poetry of the apocalypse,
but take care not to write any of it down yet. Go slowly.
Tomorrow is another day to be filled. Keep some options open.

Death is a ******
who never misses.
He stalks us all,
calmly awaiting
the proper moment,
takes perfect aim, fires,
and thinks we are gone.
Looking anxiously
over your shoulder
will not avail.
Death is patience incarnate.
He is a gatherer,
ceaselessly collecting,
eternally foraging,
and when he finds us
he slips us into his bag
and thinks we are gone.
Death is a messenger
delivering the telegram
that says our time is up.
He reads it to us
and thinks we are gone.
Death is a conductor
who calls a stop,
sees us off the train
and thinks we are gone.

But death is mistaken.

Death is certain,
but it is not final.
The world we touched
is changed forever
by our journey in it,
however brief or long.
Something of us remains
in a child, a garden,
a painting, a poem,
a kiss, a caress,
a gasping ******.
Our hearts stop beating,
but breath does not depart.
It floats in clouds
of atoms that we were.
Those we leave behind
have only to inhale
and once again
we are with them,
and within them.
Bodies die; love never does.
Each life, sacred and eternal,
inspires Creation.
We are never truly gone.

And so, an ending, just one,
before another beginning.
How much do you need to know
in any lifetime, long or short?
Do not fear death. Breathe deeply.
Embrace multitudes. Love whom you can.
Speak truth to power. Try to be
the best person you can be,
however imperfectly. Be willing
to fail with great joy;
to succeed with gratitude.
There is no best time to live.
There is only being alive.
Each moment leads only to
another present. Be in it. Be it.
And then, soon enough, be gone.

12th Century - Anonymous*

Lullay, lullay, my tiny child,
Too soon you’ll know the world so wild,
Yes all too soon, you will be grown,
And I’ll bide here, alone, alone.
The rushing billows you shall ride,
And the light of the North Star will be your guide,
But yet awhile, I’ll have you stay,
Lullay my sweet one, my child lullay.
For you shall run in meadows green,
And sport with otters all in the stream,
And you shall chase the dappled deer,
And swim with salmon in waters clear.
To pluck the small birds from the sky,
On the tail of the South Wind you shall fly,
And take the high hills for your home,
Blood of my blood, bone of my bone.
The moon must sleep beyond the tree,
So weep sweet maid of Galilee,
The sun must rise before the cross,
To dry your tears and share your loss.
The darkest hour of the starless night
Must bow to the power of the Eastern light,
That heals the Earth and makes us whole,
Heart of my heart, soul of my soul.
And when at last your course is run,
Joy of my joy, my little one,
Beneath the sky you’ll stand alone,
Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone.
Yes, you shall stand on the coal black sands,
To cross o'er the waters of Western Lands,
But now I have you at my breast,
Lullay my sweet one, gently rest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SrQ9tTEKaI

βλέπω*

Hope flickers in gathering darkness.
War, sickness, death, poverty, loss:
we must suffer them all again.
The dark heart of being
wears the weary soul.
The common world of pain,
a place we all know best.
Yet even as night falls,
a new morning of light beckons.
Hope flickers but does not falter.

Consider the optimism of alchemy.
See how desperately we strive
to create what we never were
from what we really are.
A stone, a potion, a spell:
anything that can transform us
into the actual we aren't,
into the being we'll never be,
through a pulseless world
of winter, still and lifeless;
where yet, the tantalizing
possibility of Spring
beckons like the ghost
of a beautiful woman
murmuring to us:
*yes I said yes I will Yes.

on poetry*

A poem is only a mouthful of air
until it is read.
Imagine it. Craft it carefully
from your heart's flesh.
Seal it in a bottle
of clear, pure words.
Set it adrift on
the ocean of time,
life's restless surge,
until a few congruous spirits
pluck it from the sea-wrack
and recognize a message
that illuminates their souls.
Readers find writers;
never the opposite.

That instant
when everything
equals
everything else
just before nothing
equals
anything else
again.

All I want for Christmas
is peace on earth
(well, at least in Amerika);
a black, velvet painting of Elvis
(the old, fat Elvis of course);
massive volcanic eruptions
along the Rim of Fire
with ensuing Tsunamis
for a bit of Yule excitement;
A Maserati (red, gently used);
health, happiness and peace of mind
for my friends and children;
a stuffed and mounted Cassowary
(but still safely caged);
a distance learning course
in Alchemy and White Magick;
continued success and mastery of
obscurity, poverty and poetry;
for all the men I served with
to be alive, thriving and happy;
for all the women I've loved
to remember me and smile;
for Steve McQueen to play me
in the upcoming movie of my life;
the usual end to world hunger
(more Kale for everyone!);
a bottle of pure testosterone,
tumescence and liver disease combined
(just once, Doc, I promise);
a routine, tropical winter for Pennsylvania;
release from the burden of time,
but not immediately;
to end all my dreams with laughter;
to meet and shake hands with Buddha;
and, of course, to see you again.
Think that's too much to ask?
It goes without saying
I have been very, very good
(just ask my loving, schizophrenic cat).

Poems are
the deeds of language,
but meaning
dances in the silence
between the lines.
Listen hard.
Take up the dance.

Mykonos, 1969*

I met you on a tourist island
bright beneath the sun.
I met you back when we were both
in love with being young.
I danced with you in an empty bar
and looked into your eyes,
for that only moment you get in life,
I gazed into paradise.
We wandered on together.
We knew it wouldn't last.
Our lives were much too different,
no one escapes their past.
I walked with you on the sand dunes,
I walked with you in the rain,
I walked with you in that instant
before life dissolves into pain.
Where are all those bright days gone,
those days beside the sea,
when the mystery of your freckles
was mystery enough for me.
That was nearly fifty years ago,
but you know I love you still,
for your innocence and your courage,
at a distance, I always will.
You taught me love and beauty,
in a lovely, beautiful land,
I've never quite let go of that,
never quite let go of your hand.

Don't be so ******* yourself.
The holiest of mysteries
may be bafflingly simple.
What is redemption if not
rising from your bed
into the broken world
of human flesh and struggling
to imagine how to live
and what to say?
Isn't that wrestling with angels?
Isn't that staring down
that burning bush?
Isn't that calling the forbidden
name of G-d out loud?
To try it every way,
knowing clearly you may
never quite get it right,
but persisting in the challenge
each and every day?
Don't be so ******* yourself.
Redemption may be
only a morning away.

Waking to the sound
of pounding rain
is like hearing
death do a drum roll
before a hanging.
Nothing to do
but step onto
the trap door
and prepare yourself
for the drop.

Once I fought in a losing war,
I never asked what I was fighting for,
but now my warrior days are done,
I leave the battles to the young.
They will fly and they will die,
I’m content to watch  and sigh.
It seems that I am not so brave
as I approach the yawning grave.
It felt much easier to fly and die
when swooping from a youthful sky.
I took those chances, I made that bet,
but now it’s easier to forget.
My wars are over, my fight is done,
I leave the battles to the young.
They will fly and they will die,
but pray they ask the reason why.

It all began with a cry in the night,
a slap on the ***, a blast of bright light.
The world unfolded like a dying rose,
a palette of joys, a whisper of woes.
The years slipped by, they crawled so fast
until you found yourself old at last.
A man with a cat in a silent room,
who’d laughed at death and courted doom.
The piles of drugs, the nights of loss,
the laughter, the money and all the dross,
that led you to this lonely place,
this weary body, this sagging face;
the years spent longing for a rainbow sign,
the nights of lovers, the nights of wine.
And what can you do now it's come to this?
Keep hoping for the holy kiss
that might redeem your broken soul,
and make you wise, and make you whole.
You've left everything that you ever knew,
listening for trumpets that never blew.
Now life has come down to this lonely place
with mirrors of memories and that sagging face,
and no real hope that anything more
than the life you've lived remains in store.
Forget the future, it's fled at last,
your days run backwards toward the past,
until you let out a cry in the night
and accept the dying of the light.

I'm only a poet with only a song,
and sometimes I get it, and sometimes it's wrong.
I live in a box, a box made of pain.
It sits in a field at the end of a lane.
A house without windows, a house without heart.
It's hardly a castle, but I call it a start.
It sits in its loneliness, no cars pass it by,
it crouches in loneliness beneath a gray sky.
The world stops outside. I stay within,
with my words, my memories, my pride and my sin.
I remember you baby when you came to this place
with your cheap lingerie and your lust on your face.
I remember you baby how you gave me that look
that no lonely alchemist could find in a book.
That look that told me that you wanted it all,
that led us to gasp and to writhe and to fall.
Your fingers were fever, your tongue was a snake,
you drew me inside you, your fire made me shake.
But love burns out as it flares in the night.
We got most of it wrong, but some of it right.
And then you were gone and I was alone
with a heart that was broken into pebbles of stone.
Left in that box, that box made of pain,
that sits in the field at the end of the lane.
See I'm only a poet with only a song,
and sometimes I get it, but for you I was wrong.

Hey there stranger!

Tis round about middle night. Très misterioso. Sleep a forgotten memory.
I am writing this missive from hell. Don’t dismiss my missive. Don’t be so negative.
Even the ****** are upbeat sometimes.
I was taken aback too. The downhill happened before I knew it.
Think of life as rolling snowballs. Individually, not so bad.
It’s the avalanche that crushes you.
OK, some days are disasters: dim to the brink of extinction, darkness and silence unimpaired, inertia and void as never seen before.
But you can never tell. Downs have ups. My crushing depression was long ago replaced by mere unhappiness.  A weak weakness transformed into strong weakness. That’s progress.
I always fail, but every time I fail, I fail better. That’s improvement.
Add a little honey and the gall tastes fine. Drink up. Enjoy.
If you learn to suffer well, at least you are good at something.
So don’t worry. I am at the peak of the abyss. There is no bottom.
Dismally fine, I’ve never felt older. Words won’t do. Hush.
Nothing of uninterest left to say. Just wanted to reassure you.
All is as always. There’s no hope yet.
Soon the sun will rise over the nothing new world.
From the depths, I say hi.
Optimistically bleak,

Mike (or whatever sometimes speaks for him).

Get on.
Turn your back on death. Smile.
The journey of your being continue.
The days roll by like a train
diminishing in inevitable distance.
Nothing can stop tomorrow.
People disembark randomly
at the stations of your heart.
Friends, lovers and family
walk off into worlds of their own.
The train rolls relentlessly on,
faster, always and only faster.
You know the final destination.
Soon, you will be wholly ghost.
One life, your life, one lonely world.
The conductor calls out your stop.
Turn your back on life. Smile.
Get off.

After John Keats*

I have no fears that I may cease to be,
but long for the still silence of the grave.
Nothing remains in this world to long for;
nothing that I wish to keep or to save.
The best of youth, love and hope are vanished,
Driven away by time and loss and pain;
things that made the world a place to live in,
will never return in fullness again.
Just to breathe has no value in itself;
to wake to nothing does not make a day;
a walk to nowhere is not worth taking;
and nothing of value remains to say.
  Come death and be quick, take these blues from me;
  I’ve seen it all and no more wish to see.