Saturday, September 27, 2014

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.