After each night
I always end up in myself

I am who I am,
but know not whom

I am where I am,
but know not where

I notice the dark thumps
inside my ribcage
and the soughing
of the nervous system

Thoughts sit around
polishing themselves
like cats after a meal

I don't know what to make of this,
but then I never did

I am part of the ongoing,
which doesn't even seem causal

I circle myself
like a band of wolves
'round a waining campfire
in a Jack London story,
but my center is hollow
like the eye of a Caribbean hurricane;
my swirl around me
changes everything
while remaining the same,
like a river vortex

Time is all I have,
and I partition it
into theoretical sections
that cause annoyance

Death is waiting / coming,
but constitutes nothing
but a state / absence of a state,
identical to the absence
before conception

Any annoyance / pain I feel,
is simply something
I'm informed of
that doesn't really concern me

Pain is a newscast,
like everything else

I am turning the dial
of an old radio receiver,
tuning in to the shortwave pain
from all those exotic destinations
down my body

I don't have to listen

All the occurrences
I have foolishly regarded as
absolutely necessary
- love, comfort, money, friends,
creativity -
are just make-up;
those ghastly, ghostly masks
that old, worn-out scarecrows
put on for show