Stars alright with flame.
The predawn sky is a sweet song.
The body hurts, but so does the world.
So, what can one do
but keep going?
Shooting stars flare then die,
galaxies erode,
and yeah, I will toil, then die,
but I’ll shine
at least until the morning.
Fuck. I can’t write anything.
This effort, the unending
trying
in this life we’ve designed,
leaves me with
nothing.
I ride the freezing early mornings,
surrounded by
a smothering of coats,
and I swear,
always there is a moment,
just before the bus screeches stops,
that I understand
the vagrant on the street
taking a piss on the world.
All this noise—
dumb, meaningless—
pouring from mouths like exhaust.
Where is peace?
Between drugs or the opium of work.
But I’m trying
hard to find another way.
I close my eyes on the buses
to remember her,
and the flowers and leaves and fresh air.
Sparrows drinking water cooled by night hours and shining with gasoline runoff. A pothole gathering for the tired merry, grateful to have found a potion to ease the aching of their flappings. How sweet and small, ticklish with purity, are these sparrows lapping, humble and guttural with desperation. Cars blaring, dispersing these delicate aspirations, but they soon again flock to round the jagged crater. Such attracting vibrancy, this rainbow runoff of death.