1. 2020:
Across the hollow chasm of ignorance
Perched tentatively on the cliff of laughter
We gnash our teeth and try to remember innocence
We remember how we were butterflies – our loads lighter
How we darted randomly without a care or pretense
How we danced on the wings of wind unaware of its hidden fire
2. What if…
What if, being quantum beings, we are married to randomness?
What if our knowledge and skills cannot outrun the monsters we create?
What if the monsters hidden in chance events outrun our knowledge and skills?
What if, in our stupidity and cupidity, we believe in our own invincibility?
What if the known and unknown universe is indifferent to our conscious conceit?
What if, in our arrogance and carelessness, we trigger our own extinction?
What if this Corona portents many such, but hotter than the Sun’s Corona?
3. The Corona Chronicles
A walk,
a Judo roll,
a ‘cushion fall’,
a stretch,
a shower,
a bowl of fruit
to allow thoughts to dart
and roam while tethered
on a rock of (un)certainty:
we are a rare flare of light
from the clash of distant gods
– fragments, united by chance and circumstance
3. This Travelers Palm
After years of nursed anticipation
years of endured indifference
years of standstill stares
years of suspended joy
Now
this year
the year of descended pain
you have ascended the sky.
4. The Galloping Madness
Behold, the galloping madness!
Haunted by the terrifying sound of the owl,
and the image in the mirror – a hyena in full drool -,
the King charges forth, unaware of the point of no return.
Meanwhile, probity lies prostrate, defeated;
Ignorance rests its leg on it in smug triumph.
The cheer-squad, gripped by hysterical glee, jump
up and down as they attempt to out-laugh the limping hyena.
But, God, why this gift of trance?
Why is hope pulled apart, split, and trapped in ignorance?
5. The Dream
She detained a heartbeat in her hidden gaze
The earth, in a daze, stopped spinning for a brave second
Then the heart stretched and escaped his chest
and raced madly to the bosom of joy, happy to abscond
In repose, it hugged curved hills in a million dreamscapes
6. Fragments, United
We are fragments and
splinters from chips of flint
A kindling snuffed and refired repeatedly.
We are fragments haunted
as much by lessness as by moreness
We are daydreamers, dreaming dreams
in bright colours in a dark bright night
A darkness pregnant with the tranquil violence of light
A light that presents death and birth in equal screams.
My Son…
My sons…
Who is my son?
Who are my sons?
My son. Sons.
A Well.
A welling and swelling of river’s tears
A welling of rivers flowing OVER broken bridges
A trembling of truth on a broken but unyielding bridge
My son is a bridge over an eternal river: flowing, falling, flying
My sons are the troubled eddies looping back as they go forward
7. Standstill…
There is a moment when time inhales
deeply to take in a breadth of secrets
Then after a pause, exhales butterflies –
tiny bits of existence scheming the surface
of freshly mowed grass.
A moment in time when
having drunk and eaten too much hope
We expel out bees – brave buzzing beings
that skim the surface of multiple scents,
their vigilant eyes not fooled by false flowers.
8. We exist because we didn’t and won’t – maybe
We blink
into existence
And un-blink
out of existence
We did not exist – for an eternity
Then we exist – briefly
We shall not exist – for an eternity
Yes, after we cease to exist
We may exist exactly as we are
So says infinite probability –
Or we may cease to exist in infinity
This – the marriage of thing and nothing,
blink and un-blink – is the real heaven
9. It simply IS – again
Chaos – shapeless, irregular, random
Behold: it struts and prances
It grabs pain and together
they twirl and whirl and dance
into savage storms
Oh, my teardrop, what became of you?
You were once a happy, escaped orphan
Now you’re an army, surging to burst
the banks of my lacrimal lake
What became of my levees?
Oh, well, this too is something
And, yes, this, too, is nothing
Neither bad nor good; It simply IS
Fleeting. Forming. Unforming. Formless. Endless
Therefore. Reach out. Grab. Chaos. Dance.