old poem, still untitled (DF)

Disaster doesn’t “strike.”

It waits until we find it.

 

We hold banisters

To keep from floating off—

We commit television interviews.

Somehow, we are sucked into that cabal

As part of a vague promise,

          lurching forward until we’re

Incarnated in our own vicious dreams.

 

Unreality lives in us. There isn’t enough

Money to save us for more

Than a decade. Distraction

Becomes our species—we match

Satisfaction to hollow badges,

Tinker in our living rooms

To customize our experience

Of many things: the unknown,

            The forgotten

            The blank, the dark,

            Wanting to die, to be found,

            Living without end, living anew,

            Replenishment, scars.

Can we lose.

 

(1/15/05)