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.

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.