I see others friendly, looking well
I'm in Hell, I think

What a sad feeling to stumble into all the old familiar footfalls

The suffering still fresh
And there
I feel the omnipresence
of the bleak shadow of the
world upon me
in malignant faces
at the grocery store
check-out
they operate in slow, sedated
methodologies of madness
I am sprung up from the
cool tile floor
like a misplaced statue bound
in frozen forms of observation

I park in a thrift store parking lot and cry
for you and for myself
mostly for myself

Time's ashes are diffuse and ever-present
living history in the living now
a ******* of the sacred cow is laughing
on coasts of crooked filth
and candy wrapper oases where
dead bird bones mingle in the
putrid ferns

No time to be found relaxed
no patience to be born to anything
but
slow agony of empty wishes called back
reflections, false assumptions
selfishness and neglect

Thank god for this momentary reprieve
from pointless self-analysis in the
broken mirror halls of control

no no no
thank you

I feel saddle-bagged
lost with worry
in some constant vague arrest
plucking at the chicken's feet

the fear itself unreal
broken, beaten, gone
phantoms of this self
all the world is polished chrome
and I am but an image
looking back

amazing how at time minutes
stretch off to infinity showers
& I **** the thicket therein
gone is now but
never ending
shalom
shalom
again

I'm sheltered in the maggot crop