134/365: Joy Is a Madness

My heart is freed open to joy
with the bliss
of the pendulum's deep drop.

None of this matters,
because all things are erased into anonymity by death.
All of this matters,
because all things are erased into anonymity by death.
Both are true.

We hold it in the moment's sway
through all and nothing,
nothing and all,
all and nothing,
nothing and all,
all and nothing.

Joy is the madness
of both in one
hung in the unbound space
between left and right.

133/365: Humid Hurry

Asphalt,
softened still by old heat
late at night after a first hot day,
bends to the heel
that presses through
the slick of rainwater
inking the ground.
Thunder thrums heavy and low,
thickening the air with ozone
and the animal familiarity
of humid hurry.

132/365: Tedium

I eat to survive.
Later, I will defecate.
I'll inhale, exhale.
Some days, this is tedium,
and it devours my will.



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The above poem is based on the Japanese tanka.

131/365: Goodness

A breeze crossed my face,
soft through an open window,
and woke me from sleep.
Life's goodness often happens
quietly, invisibly.



----------------------------

The above poem is based on the Japanese tanka.

130/365: The Accountants

Whenever I see
saturated video or photographs
of young people looking open and joyful,
I think
Oh no, they will be dead soon,
and also that it will be tragic,
spontaneous and unjustly violent,
their future history disappeared before them,
because that's how it happens:
we love too much,
we see too well,
our joy swells too high and bright,
and then the universe clacks the numbers out
on its machine and says,
Enough,
and the allotment's been spent.

This mourning of every young smile
and every light step
is melodramatic, sure,
but I am watching them go,
dying all the time,
and it is only right that they are known
before the accountants
take their due.