1.
We all die daily,
our breath shuddering
from the body,
the body shriveling
into matter, which
languishes, empty
and inert,
envying the
labyrinth of the soul.

What bright spirit
lures us back
into the light, stirs
us to awaken out
of our dark night?
What burden can
we still bear as
ghosts of ourselves,
erstwhile egos
chanting nada,
nada, nada as we
furtively avoid
the mirror of
Narcissus?

2.
We all die open-
eyed, gaping
at the void,
or a vast
field of stars
swirling and
sparkling above
the blackened
upper
atmosphere,
illuminating
the full breadth
of Being:
The Great
I Am of
everything that is.

Beside us, the cosmic
jester and curator
of the world
adds another
plastic frame to
a crudely rendered
self-portrait. Which
self paints the self?
Which self becomes
object and subject
simultaneously,
having its cake
and eating it, too,
but failing to notice
the crumbs
on the floor
and the icing
on its lips?

3.
So many questions
that challenge
the mastery of our
language, that
stretch the boundaries
of our mind like
an inky rubber band
dangerously
near to breaking
from overuse.
No answers
can verify
themselves
to us.
They demand
judgment, an
accounting that
only the dead
can deliver from
the far side of
the grave, beyond
the end of history,
beyond the erasure
of time.

4.
Daily we all die
only to rise again,
our lumpish
flesh electroshocked
into animation,
our soul newly
dependent on poetry
to dial in its
upper frequencies
before they
fade away
into static.
The tuner picks up
an AM station
out of Juarez.
The Mariachi
music reminds
us that this
energy may sputter
and flag like
a somnambulist,
but it never dies.