Arsenic always chases the gold,
Purifies the Colorado river rocks,
Cures the Philosopher’s stone
With its poison.
It would be silent if not for
The cold hard hum
Of the Faraday cage
That filters out the blue,
Anything that would make us that way,
Raw and original, not seeing
The master as anything
But an equal.
The gilded degradation
Doesn't work on you anymore.
You believe in sovereignty now
Not the survival God,
For there's no collaboration possible
If you are always wrong.
The angels know, but cannot say,
All they can show you
Are the symbols: the panopticon,
The radiation in the exit sign,
The cleanness that says
You're not needed here
Though you vie to be included
By not saying the
Unexpected or what might
Possibly cause offense.
The bells are not explained,
How they're Buddha's
Humming come
To reclaim your mind
And it's not polite to ask
Who that lady with the glasses was
Who glared inside your third eye
Like the company's historian.
There are standards even here, of course,
Of conduct, approved colors,
Suggested poses,
Optional mats,
All the shadings of choice
Without one real decision made,
Because the mind, no matter how quiet,
Can't calm that beating heart
That wants only to run away
Before everyone starts to feel
Sorry for themselves,
That you have stayed
Past your ability to unsee
How freedom's really shame,
Effort simply approval,
Following the rules
As if they have some relevance.
Ah Angels, help me bless
What I can no longer reach,
The gumball machine
That seizes and shakes
To remind you it's your fault
Everything is broken
And you're on your own.
Only your platitudes
And evasions survive you,
Who was not here as a human
But a task, to be managed
While the world is not as it was.
The fountain is breathing chi.
The tile patterns warp to infinity
And you only exist if you're not seen.
You can go to HR
Or leave the earth entirely;
Most recommend the former, for
Victims can always choose again.
And you can sound out your big words
With your indoor voice
Under the lights you once thought
Was a stage
But it is only an arraignment pen
For what you’ve left suspended
Waiting for the Fire Horse to arrive
To put out your fire instead of set it,
Even though that’s what apocalypses always do
And you thank them by muttering mudras
And toning gratitude for the wretched log of shit
That is existence,
So the accusations of the guilty proliferate
In your in-box that you want to mass delete
But they have to be read to be released,
Though a response is always optional,
For those moments when silence is not
The most thoughtful answer, the non-false
Default, the truth that needs no defense,
Though it never stops questioning itself,
Never. So hard to believe on your own,
When it's numb, no consolation offered
For the prose.
No mindless mindfulness will catch its brilliance.
The flags clang what they mean
But they are not seen
Except as they retreat at sunset
And rise again at dawn
To try again to share what they are
With pride, forgetting again
That the curl is only recognized
By the act of being, what it is.
