Sense

I've taken to the habit
of walking through the building
in the dark.
It is a test of the senses,
or maybe a reminder that,
you may very well be alone,
but you can never be that damned sure,
now can you?
And as an added bonus,
I've done my part to create a mythos
giving a spirit to the place,
recycling the air,
but for me
I still wonder
why I need the light?
The politics of light bulb manufacturing
and cheap energy and it's various obvious consequences
is all a little much
when you can just miss one step
and become fragile
or frozen in a moment
shuffling through your God-given emotions
like a deck of cards; a bad hand on a dark night
and falling back to your awkward humor
because that is what you are
will be
not particularly well suited
to have been
and shatter
like
ice?
glass, no
porcelain, better
a slight exotic flair,
yet old-fashioned
like imagining the worlds hidden among your grandfather's bookshelf
at age six
and not realizing until Intro to American Literature
that it was all just antiquated racist claptrap
and we haven't really missed that much
even with our ever shortening life spans
due to genetic deficiencies of the soul
and we regret to inform you
dear customers
that class will be canceled for the remainder of the summer
due to dangerous questions being asked
at exactly the right time
and that is just missing the point of dangerous questions.
Haven't we taught you better?
So have a nice spring
see you next Fall:

There was a secret society
you knew about
monitoring
and which you've since outgrown,
and now you miss that curious kinship
and tragically nothing we can do
can convince you that we give a damn
much less that you were once and remain
the target of an international conspiracy
and twenty-four hour surveillance,
and for the narrative's sake,
ancient prophecies, phases of the moon,
it's just meaning.
Geht's weiter.
European games and shadows,
or reflections, it takes years of training
and field experience to tell the difference
sometimes.
And you?
Your father was a civil war ghost.
You inherited the characteristic persistence,
but about-faced on the revisionism and living in the past,
and flew to the moon on mid-90s pessimism,
ker plow

taking for granted that it is both at once
a soundstage
in the Hollywood Hills, pre-sighted and forward looking,
and just a rock, floating around us,
empty and silent, watching us
ebb and flow, rise and fall,
x and y
and will continue to do so
until long after we can only echo the sentiment
and blast off into eternity locked in a mute struggle,
a conversation summing up
all that can be summed up.
I think we're being followed.