1
- of course
my life has become
unmanageable
i can't stand to hear the cell phone
i can't stand to hear the door knock
i hate visitors because visitors
like inmates cannot
be turned off
i don't like anyone or anything
i am alone in a sea of faces
in an ocean of personalities
they do not abide
2
can't impinge can't penetrate
like a spirit with no
physical attributes i am unable to
bring change have effect
affect or manipulate physical reality
like a physical body with no
spiritual attributes i can
bring no impact make no
infusion or essence on
spiritual reality
cannot prevent the spiritual
beings around me
from spiraling to their own
inevitable and
inconsequential demise
the batteries run down in the
flashlights
the camera batteries
drain to two bars
the end is inevitable
and inconsequential
as a physical being i
only await my inevitable
termination
my evacuation
my physical effects swept up
boxed and carried out
having brought about no change
in physical reality
as a spiritual being
unable to endure
i can only
await
obliteration
3
the days go by fading into
one another
the physical beings around me
gather like vultures hopefully awaiting
the possible early onset
of Alzheimer's
disease
i get forgetful
i care but i am
powerless over my
fellow beings
i am not getting the care to which i am
accustomed or to which
i am entitled
caregivers glance at conditions
shrug their shoulders
and do nothing
do not impinge
like vultures they await
their pay
give a minimal effort
and complain about the other
caregivers
they do nothing
nothing can reach me
i cannot
reach out
i am unreachable
` background noise increases
further diminishing my
signal strength
my ability to
communicate
4
fuses go unchanged in the stove and refrigerator
the dishes unwashed in the sink
gathering
inactivity
one day (we don't know when)
this will all be gone
i will be remembered only
a moment or two
then new paint
new curtains
new fuses
swept away
and to what have i dedicated
my time upon the earth
unable to impinge
on physical reality
unable to infuse
my spirit
none no thing
it will be like i
never existed
like i do not exist
i can not rise above the
poverty that surrounds me
the cultural impoverishment
i cannot help but be
buried by it
and
disposed with it
5
because i experienced
it does not give it
validity
isolated
only joined in
commonality with others of my
species
in
birth death
procreation
eating and defecation
old age and deterioration
common markers
in between there is
nothing no thing
it doesn't matter
what we did what we felt
who we were
or what our individual experience was
there are too many people
already
there is no one to communicate to
the end remains the same
no one cares
6
don't forget to turn out the light
(if you don't, someone
else will)
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
a long and painful but apt portrayal.... the despondence and helplessness comes through like the shriek of the grim reaper...the surrounding muffled foot steps lost in a haze.....time against Adam's progeny! so touching and catches one by the scruff, yanks ya up to reality.... lovely write blessed be sat