black ink spilling over endless fields. afternoon drive on empty country roads in the winter rain; it feels like being in a fish tank and trying to breathe under water. i stop nowhere; i get out of the car; i listen to the waiting: it is thick as mud; wind whispering, trying to lift the heavy sky just another dream higher; a stray beam of light coils around the trees and makes them glow; i shouldn’t have left home even if it felt like dying under the burden of that silence. where can i go: journeys have left me.

early morning the garden was floating in the air - mist and black earth and camellia trees with cold-burnt flowers and all; I thought it was a good sign: it weighed less on her frozen body in its shallow grave. the flapping of wings among branches must have been the voice of god calling her name.

have you ever noticed -

decisive things always take place

in doorways, on borders, on edges.

when the fall into the abyss seems imminent

or trespassing is danger unfolding

then the only thing that makes sense

is to laugh at the final joke;

perhaps for you, only for you

and just this one time,

to fall is to fly.

letting go is the hardest

when hope swells in your chest like a beehive;

transfixed by illusions the mask grows and hardens

polished, smooth, “comme il faut” - 

you can barely breathe

yet you’re proud you fit in.

this is order and its face is frightening:

the invisible code of chaos is hiding 

beneath the graceful handwriting.

before it all began

there was a luminous stillness

a dancing silence -

unfathomable merry-go-round of endless

possibilities;

my friend Marvin always said

things are not what they appear to be -

hope is a drag, the dopamine of the ignorant;

demonology, clairvoyance, blind faith are

butter popcorn for the theatre of fools;

dissonant tunes numb fears and vanities;

armies of idiots march proudly,

shouting their right to be happy,

to kill, destroy, consume, multiply.

oh, loving humankind shouldn’t be so hard!

old homeless Marvin once a code breaker 

of encrypted life forms and secret writings from other worlds,

now rummaging through the garbage bin - 

he knows who they are, what they do:

“they’re grasping in the dark at whatever they can reach -

they’re not avoiding the crash -

just slowing down the fall.”