It’s easy to discern the who what where and when Compared to the divination of why. Why are we here? Why are we alone? Why are we tortured with foreknowledge of death?
Stop.
That’s the most important why, perhaps. For it plucked us from the trees And set us on course To make some sense of our shortage of days, To ****** the brass ring of eternity If only in the collective memory.
(Let us here pause And give a moment’s thought To the countless anonymous Who sacrificed all their Fleet-footed hours And all human joy For attainment of eternity In the memory collective Only to have been Promptly forgotten In the first moment of Posthumous silence.)
But this quest is amoral, It does not specify Whether fame or notoriety’s the prize.
This is the apple of Eden The tree of knowledge. It is the crux of sentience
(Poor sentience, robbed by redefinition of all salience and pride, Left lying shop-worn and ill-used.)
It’s the fear of time, the root of crime And our demand for assistance devine. Are our whole lives a scream of protest Against the known inevitable? Can inevitability even be known Without the benefit of hind legs?
(Why the quadruped bias? (and what does this have to do with inevitability?) Any more than four legs would render ‘Hindmost’ as opposed to ‘hind.’ Let us be specific, Whether or not it’s Neither here nor there.)
Why can’t we make peace with our fate, And accede to the eventual silencing of that Hated, feared, beloved voice within? What does nothing feel like? What does nothing sound like? Who would be there to tell?
Imagine our lives If foreknowledge of death, Did not exist. What would be sustained? What would be lost? What would have never become? (I know that my ask is unreasonable at best, The bell has already been rung. But this is my poem and I’ll ask what I will.) Could you live in such a state Of innocence edenic? Of course not; not as you are. But then, who, what would you need to be? If innocence were refundable, What would that voice, That lives in a certain place Between your ears
(Would that voice still be hated, feared, beloved under the prospective circumstances, or would it be otherwise?)
Have to say
(Does a voice ‘say,’ Or does it speak For it’s master?)
When in quietest solitude?
Are you uncomfortable? Will you turn the page? Would you prefer to debate Than to imagine? Do we know which way the wind blows? Are there any more weathermen? Or are we all meteorologists? Does it matter? Did it ever?
For those who remain, Let me welcome you To the Realm of Poets and Madmen. A distinction without a difference.