There is still dust in my eyes
and ringing in my ears;
the serpent coiled in the bottom
of my pack counts coup each
time I reach in.
I've known of its presence
for years now—
ever since I began
my walks with Death—
but I let it have the satisfaction
of its Killer's game. Why not?
It is an easy kindness.

We look so hard
that we fail to See.

We stood and watched,
mesmerized by its brilliance,
pacified by the warmth
that radiated through our bodies.

Our highs flowed up through the heat,
riding the tips of the flames
as they licked at the sky,
incandescent and greedy.

We knew it was burning too hot,
too fast—
but only the crash can humble the high.

The act of not believing;
not believing in one’s actions,
or participation,
in a world that preexists
the conflicted Self.

Collapse;
collapsing force.

Monumental;
monumental pain.

Shifting in the night,
ripping through torrid dreams—
each atrocity screaming its own cry,
existing through its own suffering...
each plea demanding its own recognition...
creating its own world of pain,
its own Reality, encased
in its own experience of torture.

And you...
where do you turn?

They killed John Henry
with a false ideal:
ownership as Realization;
Happiness as being external;
life's vitality as commodity.

They killed John Henry
with a name and a title.

They killed John Henry
with an interested dream.

Let it take me,
those towns I move through,
and those I claim to know.
Let our Institutions fall—
crumble down through the
failed foundations of our
own self-possession.