this crisis is
just like that one.
a routine of epochs.

it raises the hair
on the arm and
neck. it chills the
room. it breaks
the neck and back.
it stiffens the marrow.

it follows a trail,
the trail
of wounded
knees
and tears.

it is a march,
unending, beyond the
trees and plains.
into and through
exhaustion. beyond the
end of this world and
the end of
all their worlds.

it is a death
a death that keeps
on giving
into all the
generations.
into the rivers
and valleys,
into all those amber
golden, godless
sunsets.

i keep falling
in over and over
even though
i'm expected to
be someone else
and do something
else
something less idle
i have shaken
the devil's hand
and perhaps
forsaken my soul
and now
i feel i'm owed
and for that
feeling i'm choked
with and by guilt
i lose my grip
almost every
sunday evening
my chest heaves
and crumples
and heaves again
a little weaker
a little shorter
a little shallower
i present these things
i concoct to your
blind ears and eyes
i strive to break
your heart to see
the tears and the
blood bubble and flow
but all you do
is laugh and smirk
rolling your eyes
and sighing
exasperatedly
grow up, you mutter
be less strange
you wish

on the way home
i saw two buzzards
eating a cat
cold and wet
a crushing of
the spirits
let us commence
in the abandoning
of all hope

i am the last burning
tree in the forest
i am equanimity turned
to pitch and tar
i am the minutiae of
the incremental shift
for these are not ghosts
these are just things
left undone
in this short and
indivisible interval
allotted to that
burning synapse
that constitutes
the i in this and
all other reveries

the shadows
lengthen from the
stygian corner
to my outstretched
hand reposed,
between the
jaws of
the wolf,
delicately on its
quivering tongue
with fangs
clinking and
gleaming,
slavering with
devastation and
with this and
in this
salivating sickness
i scour the
heavens and the
depths in that
forever disconsolate
light to clip
the devil's antlers
to wail and beseech.
but nay!

he will not
lay them aside.

i hear the ghosts of trees,
of this and
that world dissolving
into the night.
in the whispering darkness
the lights click on
humming and buzzing with
the blue electric arc
they shine for
no one,
now,
they shine on
no thing.