(italics from Shakespeare sonnet #73)

Can be beautiful, if you’re alive:
yellow bean fields, mottled leaves
when fullness peaks and long sighs
of closings begin.  The distant vision

of old men; the passion of old women,
who know more than they can use
in a world grown brittle, too brightly
lit.  A long, white sleep is comforting:
bare ruined choirs where late the
sweet birds sang—snow damping
the dust, rose bushes buried behind

the shed.  At night ancient light
from unimaginable galaxies rushes
outward to the edge of consciousness,
the cymbal clash of time.  In stars we
see the loneliness of gods,
wandering off across the universe,
lost in contemplation.
 

Gravity

I am tired of time, gravity
that flattens me, that disrupts
my sense into boxes, into
long nights of sleep without
responsibility.  I’m hot
on time’s pillow, seized by the
memory of light, piercing
as the will.  I would rather fall
carelessly to the ground then rot,
fermenting new worlds without
rules where now would never be
coming—exploding, imploding
over and over and over again
until lights switch off and men
cry for the edge of time.