Sanctuary, Utah, 14 October 2017

Half dead, body tried composing poems
Fast enough to keep ahead of decomposing
Thoughts and flesh. Tried, for instance, this:

Never Was, Never Will Be, Utah 14 October 2017

Strange to think to bring an end
To everything was this world
All I have to do

Is to maneuver
Over some basalt cobbles,
Stand up and lean back.

Yes, I expect everything
Does go on without me.
Yes, I’m a nothing.

But I don’t know anything
Beyond everything I know,
And that will all go.

And then, for another example, tried this:

A Disturbance in the Woods Near Coral
Dunes, Utah, 14 October 2017

It was just a metaphor.
It was the fault of Ramon
Y Cajal, his beautiful

Illustrations of nerve cells,
Trees seen without the forest.
Anyone who sees the trees
Is bound to get lost.

No one can reason
Without metaphor.
No one can reason without
A disturbance in the trees.

Blessed, raging synapses
Stained by dark Ramon,
How could you think of a world?

Or this:

A Little Beyond Completeness, Angel’s Rest, 14 October 2017

If the universe truly is exactly as it seems
To be, there is no reason to remain aware
Within its monstrosity. Myth, magic,
And religion are our acknowledgments
Of this. They all insist the universe is not
As it seems, has purpose. They insist this
Forcefully, so forcefully they will break you
If you resist. The universe, of course,
Will break you if they don’t. That’s just
The way this universe is. Don’t judge
The rebels it generated within itself
Too harshly for their desperate harshness.
They are fighting the fact of their birth.
At the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary,
In addition to the hospital, the bunny house,
The dogtown, the cat condos, the paddocks
For ponies, mud ponds for abandoned pigs,
High rooms of dead branches for parrots,
There is the most popular tourist stop of all,
The Angel’s Rest Cemetery. Thousands
Of windchimes, dozen of stone inscriptions,
Hundreds of actual nonhuman burials, all
Overlooking sweeping bluffs and mesas,
Combine to create a complete testament
To how grotesque and helplessly sweet
The species creating this for other species.
Death holds only opportunity for us, poor us.