May a bolt of lightning strike
The metal posts of the headboard
Grow tendrils of electricity
Send voltage like a clutching fist
To lift my head from the pillow quite unaware
And flow like so much wobbly frozen fire
Through each essential system
Manifest in its own way
All called by a Voice of Authority
To traverse every inch of my body
Shaking and baking, front to back
Lost in a dream of Iceland's lunar cycles
And how much better the cold feels next to the artificial heat
Artificial heat send me away to where I belong
Anywhere but here
Lost in a jungle of neon signs
Now it's time for an English muffin

Without Love
Protons and electrons break loose
To float their separate trajectories
Into nothingness
Nucleus abandoned
Merges, One, Explodes
Into nothingness
Without Love

Without Love
Atoms rebel
Defy the sticky glue that together
Makes them matter
Trees and things
Reduced to dreams
None of which matter
Without Love

The heart grows hard without it
The soul can't live without it
How can the thinking mind doubt it
With so much revealed about it?

Without Love
People forget
Wonder and mystery, hope and memory
As if Love never existed
They strive for nothing more
Than a gentle death
And hope someone will remember
They existed
But the grand Valtari of time will ensure
Nobody will
Without Love

Without Love
Without light
Without the dividing line
Between day and night
Without belief
Without grace
Without any reason
To stay in this hard place
Without these things
Who can live?
With nothing offered
With nothing to give
There are no words
To make you understand
Not even these
O, loveless man

This is the moment Tolle exalts
Unconcerned with directions
Left, past, right, future
Full stop center in linear
A chronology we don't trust
I'm bullseye center
In the shadow of I Am That I Am
Happy to be there
Aching wrist holding this iPhone still
While my numb left pointer taps
The tiny letters and the long harmed f space
Clicking these incomprehensible words
As gallons and gallons of race be
Pour  from selfish yet hursting bags of water
Lightning flashes brilliant illumination
On the center of the spiral
The black hole is surely out of our reach
The exhaustion of trying to edplain
Sends me to the kitchen in hopes of finding an orange
Or pickle juice in lieu of apple and salt

A sharp blade slashes with divine precision
The softened heart
Leaving the most precious wound
That will never heal
A sign, a seal
Of all that is true
And all that is real
All that remains
When the blood is drained
Empty space
For the wind to fill

Through the gates of a paradox
Past three strands of infinity
I pull up the curtain of night
The face of God by chance to see

To bathe in rivers of moonlight
Enamored of hope's gentle glow
I breathe in fresh lungfuls of sunshine
And slowly forget all I know

When my tired mind is empty
Every memory stripped, every care
When Nothing is all that is left me
I know I'll find you standing there

People are dying, baby, all around
Can't catch your breath another's fallen down
They stop living and you know it's true
Gonna happen to me, yeah, and it's gonna happen to you
People are dying, baby, everywhere
You name the city, the Reaper's been there
He come a-swingin' with that shiny blade
Make you pay for all the mistakes that you've made
People are dying, baby, that's a fact
There ain't a-one of them a-comin' back
From where they're going on that uncloudy day
Didn't tell no one they was going away
People are dying that's the facts of life
You gonna tell 'em to the kids and the wife
You gonna live 'em there ain't no escape
Put an end to all the plans that you make
People are dying, I don't mean to be irreverent
But I got this problem with the social experiment
They call war and it sure is hell
Black water from the wishing well
People are dying, baby, some too soon
And some are thankful for the Raven's tune
But some too soon, is that what I said?
Some people are dying, baby, all the others are dead

This is mine
The overwhelming urge to share
Is a symptom of a condition
Is a desperate plea for affirmation
Unbecoming one as needy and selfish
As I

There was a time
I was the loudest laugher
When the laughter was at my expense
Hunkering down, stealing against depression
With varying degrees of "success"
My sense of self-deprecating humor has suffered

But this is mine
So I can take it with me to the grave
Walk it down the aisle
Put it on my face fall in love with mirrors
Turn up my nose in scorn
At any fool who thinks he can take it from me