I lay down on the couch- my mother
eating plain toast because she
lost the jelly.

My father, of course, couldn’t find
the jelly. My mother told him he was
rude when he says he couldn’t find
it.

Music from the apartment upstairs
filters down; it sounds like whale songs.

The music has no edges and
the song itself has a blurred quality.
It is dissipating the anxiety in me-
the doctor says I have about
six months to live.

I’ve had 40 years to live
and what has come of it?

Well, I do have a host of friends,
good relationships with family,
and a whole bunch of phones
and computers!

When I walk in my room,
it’s like I’m walking on the bridge
of Star Trek’s ship.

But besides the blinking lights
and the whale music that appears
to be omnipresent in this apartment,
filtering down from upstairs,
there’s little else
but a sadness like a half-written
sentence and no writer to complete it.

Pacing on the patio,
the following thought hit me-
“The only reason we are born, is to find out why we were born.”

It burned in the center of my mind,
as I stared at the thought.

It had me reflect on a conversation
I had with a friend once.

“SO this guy says to me,”
says my dear friend Cliff,
“what’s your purpose?”

“And I said to him, ‘I don’t
need to justify my existence
to you; why do I need a purpose?
Why can’t I just be?'”

We were sitting
outside ‘Legal Seafoods’
just outside the
CHestnut Hill mall.

It was a warm, cloudless day
and I remember how silly
he always looked, with
the superman ring he always wore.

And now, just back from the patio,
and the magical little thought I had,
I agree with my friend.

Why can’t just ‘being’ be enough?
When someone says they’ve ‘found their purpose,’
they’e actually found a reason to justify
their existence.

Peace. Peace is the grandfather
of the universe, and its what I
savor above all.

If that counts as a ‘purpose,’
so be it.

My figertips are feet
of another animal
who walks across
the page,
growling,
gurgling for air.

This beast
has no idea
that its footprints
tell a story
through me.

Sometimes
it stops to pee,
and I get writer’s block.

Other times,
it sees a mate
in the distance,
and my poem becomes lewd.

Other times,
especially on winter afternoons,
it stands perfectly still.

It senses something is going on,
that there are forces greater than it,
using it.

and my fingertips stare up at me,
curious, dumbfounded.

These are the moments
when the words leap out of me;
the beast and myself, well,
that’s when we’re closest to God.

That’s when we know there is no sun
to set in the first place.

That’s when we know
that the moon is the mother of us all.

I don’t know what lay before me.

I know it is something I have never met.

Or do I even know that?

I watch a baby bird dancing on the deck outside,
seeing nothing but what is in front of it.

I wish I could be like that bird, darting
here and there, gleefully unaware
of the natural progression of things.

Maybe death is where I am introduced
to the song of my life.

Maybe there are lawyers, defending my life’s
actions before the almighty.

Maybe God is a chainsmoker, who
sits on a park bench ever morning,
unconcerned about much.

I wish I could dive with the wind, and be unconcerned
about the future.

I wish I could lift up, and soar above the problems
of my life, solving them through a lack of awareness.

Or, sleep through it all like a bear.

I look at the peace of my sleeping cat,
and seriously wonder if we humans
have anything on animals when
it comes down to happiness.

I believe my cat was made
in the iamge of God.

I believe every snowflake was too.

I believe the wind is God breathing

I believe that whatever you believe
is true, in this dimension, or the next.

I also believe that I know exactly nothing,
and my mind is clean and blank
as a cloudless sky in the heart of november
where sweet, coloful deaths are born.

Maybe the birth of my death
will be colorful and beautiful too,
and you can turn the tapestry
I leave behind into something
beautiful forever.

Here I am,
oh Lord,
walking away.

Here I am,
screaming
in the emergency room,
the wind howling outside.

Here I am, Oh lord. Here I am.

Here I am,
shivering naked
in the bathroom
unable to shit.

Here I am
too weak to pick up the phone.

Here I am, oh Lord,
cold under your sun.

Here I am,
frightened of food.

Here I am,
gobbling oxycodone.

Here I am, Oh lord. Here I am.

Here I am,
walking away from
the poisons of man,
seeking you.

May you take
this broken life
and heal it
with eternal light.