What would it take —
tripping, laughing,
falling out of clothes
into bed or even to the floor —
smashing your head
on the hardwood, then
recovering enough
to get your ass up and
truly rest wherever
you end up — alone
or accompanied, naked
again, wordless again,
listening to the birds outside
though you can’t name a one —
what would it take for you
to give up your
pleasure of the moment,
to aim for the heart, aim
for the filthy politics;
what would it take for you
to remove a chunk of soil
from your innermost part
and fling it at the monkeys —
what will you offer them
in place of all the things
that granted you purity, that
got you into bed feeling clean
and serene, that sent you
to bed in the first place
without caring that without you
there might be an offer of nothing
to the Machine and
the moment of crisis?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Tomorrow is a violet day
when the collapse
of the earth as we know it
comes true.

It will
implode with a rush
of music and someone will speak
on it, say it’s reggae
or rock music or something
else again and we will be left
wondering about it, arguing
about it as the silence comes
louder and louder, or quieter
and quieter.

Meanwhile
the earth (or planet or
whatever term we agree upon
if any) will fall in upon itself
while politicians natter about
and terrorist push their bombs
on us and the ocean comes by
to swallow whatever is left.

We will watch a television show
and argue about meaning and
cry ourselves to sleep and maybe,
if we are lucky, make love one last
satisfactory time and wake up
in a new world that looks uncommonly
like this one —

tinged with violet
and trending toward black, but
more or less the same except
it will take less time and just
as small, if not smaller, a presage
to tell us why it has slowed so little
that it feels the same
as all the other days before the earth
turned violet, then darkened
just a little bit more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T