Clouds and Roses

I do not mourn the passing of a cloud;

I enjoy watching it disintegrate into azure.

A blossom falls. I shrug, then I move on

after brief study of the wounded rose.

I weigh the light descending from a supernova,

blasted across ten million miles of space;

I light my page with its vanishing pinpoint of rays.

A friend dies. I sing a soft drunken song for him,

then let him sleep forever in my memory’s secret hotel.

Don’t call me heartless. A thousand galaxies

have died between my lover’s gasp and sigh.

Roses, clouds, galaxies, lovers, friends – when they’re gone,

there is always more where they came from.

Sad but true—not sad, and yet still true.

It is the iron law:

there is no beginning and no ending for all.

The quantum vacuum is pregnant

eternally, like the high school you-know-what.

She’s pretty and sweet, and definitely loony,

and far too generous with her tender, over-eager thighs.

I always liked her. Everybody does.

Everyone lets her get away with murder,

She is rose, cloud, supernova, galaxy, lover.

My own passage is nothing but an already forgotten breath.

When I was born, I had already died.

So, cheer up, friends. They say life is an illusion,

but the greatest illusion of all is death.