When we die
We sink back
Into that from which
We came

We reconnoiter
Our stuff
With that from which
We were delivered

And it takes
A bit of time
No one
Can be sure
How long

Because
Well
The process
Of reconnoitering

Starts with our rotting away from what we are now  
Involves some process
Or another
Of our being reabsorbed into the Earth and her elements  
Being redistributed  
Here and there  
And everywhere

Over that period of time
I am fairly certain
We cannot know
Ourselves as we are now

That is to say
There will certainly
Shortly after we die
Be an ending of neural pathways firing
And a stillness of thoughts
Even those that let us therefore be

And given enough time
Some of those elements
That were
Within us
Will certainly
Be without
What we now
Call us

And all of the elements
That we now
Call
us

Will
have
to
deal
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And given
Even more
Time
As much as
random
Dissociated time
Needs
Elements
Of what we now
Call Us
Will be within
What we would now
Call other
Living things

Or, one living thing, viewed not through the lens of time.

As a poem
On an
Infinitely long
And strange
page

Sometimes, as I lie in bed
I awake to the screaming
Of some tortured soul
Lamenting his current existence
In the ruin of hopes
In the ruined city of man

Sometimes I even awake
From the seductive dream
That this misanthropic howl
Is not my own heart
Yearning to sing its sorrow
In the way given to man

Oh, mockingbird
That you could sing your own song

Repeating nightmares
Just to be sure—
Certain I’m this insecure
Depleting patience
Of conscious dead
From whom nature’s love has bled

The leaders of men
Have come to pray
But no gift can greed allay
Yes, no gift at all
From iron gods
Can assuage a soulless fraud

I call thee, War Horse
The time is nigh
Mars is mirrored in our eyes
And our empty hearts
Will beat anew
With blood vengeance shall accrue

Our humanity—
All our prowess
I bend unto your malice

Ego, madness, hubris, anger
Darkness, violence, loathing, doom
Fury, abhorrence, wrath, danger
Desire, frenzy, hatred, black bloom

Constantly tripping, stumbling
The circus search for imperfect heels
I’ve offered so little effort to protect
My love for the empirically ideal
Concerted my focus on what never to expect

I’ve been wearing a chip upon my shoulder
With an Achillean charm
Been chopping at my shin to guard my pride
When I should have thought myself an Oddarm
And thereby learned to fly

And of all the endless grained aspects
Strewn on the gray beaches of time
I could not have wasted my ignorance
On one more voraciously sublime
To squander the virtues of such chance

And the glancing blows of life
Shape in me such strange affect.