welcome back you old bastard
the curmudgeon i periodically become
tense beneath a wide blue missouri sky

while soft loving sunlight seeps in
dances rhythmically through the car window
probing me for faint signs of life

what is this pernicious thinking
a dark sludge that expands exponentially
dragging me into stories of separation?

words, always words, and thinking
that there is some right way to act
so you will all affirm your love

you see me, you hear and console me
and therefore i feel i have been born
that my existence is as real as the sky

the vast blue sky and dying landscape
reel by flickering beyond the window
quietly preparing for a long hibernation

the darkness arrives sooner each day
with each dawn the trees are more barren
the cold seeps deeply into aging bones

in another few seasons all will be dust
and whether or not i’ve been here
will matter not a bit to the living

so i ask you what is the point of this
how am i to behave as this particular fiction
and how can you pretend to know anything

you and i, us and them, a throng
of labels, descriptions of characters,
how does talking ever help anything

and why share these depressing thoughts
the law of mind action piles more
and more upon the festering heap

perhaps when i break under the weight
i will see again clearly perhaps
in the deafening silence i will hear

please let me break apart in time
i desire that my blood be filled
with golden radiance my mind dissolved

and all that i am to be known
written down and verified in my heart
safely protected from my dark thoughts

i want to sleep and awaken in my veins
i want to give you the kindness i intend
and i think my absence is the only way

this staggering pile of beliefs can ignite
and join the universal energy yes
i surrender them all and blissfully rest

my blood warms in the waning sun
my heart continues to seek you so now
at last may we rest silently in love?

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 20181110