raw, the rancor of unbelieving
the powerlessness
into the last station
at the end of the line.

who are you to say what it feels like?
who are you? why am I here? in kindergarten,
the hospital, the nursing home, the memory clinic,
any fucking euphemism you want to call it so let's
get real...or not.

comb your hair! and while you're at it, my shoe size is 4 1/2
so don't bring me those clown shoes, don't throw me the gauntlet,
don't scare me with your ideas or tell me you love me when you don't.
i know who you are. don't worry, i know what you believe or think you believe and let's face it, it doesn't matter because this is my life. this is life. you'll see.

the hat?
it seems ridiculous.
to love your head impossible.
what's a torso but a stand to hang your hat on?
what's a stand but a cause that is ignored?
what's a hat when you can hang yourself?
what's a head when there is not a thought?

out of the black hole
impossible, you say?
no escape from critical mass
frozen cortex
no synapses firing.
warning! warning! warning!
the no hair theorem
one thought indistinguishable from the next.
with four million solar masses, please tell me,
who the hell can think?
looks inert on the outside
the heat invisible, unbearable, insufferable from within,
that stretchy membrane oscillating before the collapse.
after the supernova explosions the clock slows
at the approach of the event horizon,
time is infinite, the light dim
the mind in gravitational redshift.
if it takes forever to get there then
it takes forever and a day to return.

I walk in the valley of the shadow of life
and when I trespass death I look back,
look beyond and wonder how I got here
so young, unexpectedly, without prompting
from the other side. Late at night I hear them
calling, not my name, never giving instructions,
nothing specific like that, just the sound of their voices
which echo when I turn my head, all together now
in harmonic convergence
as if all those I have lost and all those I am
about to lose have come together from this day forth
until death do us come together.

at the center of the galaxy
all matter collapses.
Schwarzschild's system of coordinates forms the boundary
of the bubble where time stops.
beneath a membrane, hot with radiation and
infinite possibilities, common objects, collapsed stars
and supernova explosions hide behind the exterior.
this is the creative process.
what is left? the novel.