Why? Because I May Be Losing It.

Why do I tame the pain of draining time

pricking the printed days

on my statin-pill packaging?

Those impish devils

that contain and still

my straining heart,

keep my ticker in check,

keep my pecker up,

and make my sick system work again.

Tick, tick, ticking off

the relentless days of torment

until the statin pack is spent.

           Until the moment

           the pills are no longer required.

           ***

Why do I try to unravel things

that are best left veiled

on trails untravelled?

           Because I can't help it?

Like staring, sun-blinded,

at a cumulous cloud

trying to define the outline,

trying to make it mine,

trying to distil some essence

from the fluffy white sublime.

Why do my tired, tied-up hypotheses

lie beached on two extremes?

Inaccurate versus acute;

lay-teacher versus lay-preacher,

under or over-reaching every day.

Shooting with pinpoint accuracy

versus winding around in infinite space

(if there were ever such a place)

never finding the middle playground.

Thoughts turning like a millstone

grinding at a frantic pace

leaving me static in the race.

           ***

Why do my ever-streaming dreams

paint such a quaint little picture?

I die, dry bones anointed

by my own frying fat,

within the faint distant glow

of a billion spiralling supernovae:

before the saintly black hole

whispers its hocus-pocus,

engulfs my tainted soul,

and all matter that ever was

flows to its singular locus.

           ***

Why do I lie to myself about so many things,

droning on and on when drinking

in the half-light of long nights, quite alone:

porky pies well-known, some not known

and the groaning, gaping,

unknown unknowns?

Because... we aspire to be more

than flesh and bone?

Because... lies atone?

Why do I sigh a surviving seadog’s sigh:

while the remains of life I swim in,

dodging the shipwreck splinters,

fail to revive my thriving aches and pains:

centred, straining in the still,

demonic, trained dried eye

of the spiralling hurricane’s raving will,

surrounded by driving rain

and swirling wreckage,

striving to escape the tightening coil

and overcome my plight?

Because... I’m a good swimmer?

Because... it trains me to feel alive in plain sight?

Why do I find profound beauty

in five formless flapping crows,

black beaks freakishly hushed,

on enigmatic corvid duty,

seeking elusive carrion,

wings creaking across a bleak winter-season sky?

Because... of unsound reason?

Because... of the treason of joy?

Why do I retire from prying eyes:

the fair and biased scrutiny

of fellow, sentient

plant and animal lives?

Because... I’m shy?

Why do I hear,

beneath the seeming silence,

a primal underworld

swarming with silent moans and drones,

subtly contrasting in pitch and tone?

Because... it makes me happy

not to feel alone?

Why do I drain this dull, narcissistic brain,

straining Golgotha’s rocky skull,

rattling and railing against the painful fulcrum

of insane cock-and-bull contemplation?

Because... I can?

(Descartes’ incantation.)

Why do some years fly by,

when I oil the dry, grinding gears

then they nearly mesh,

jangling with fresh adrenaline

and Pan’s carnal cornucopia,

with less deadness of the living flesh?

Because... I relish this slippery pleasure?

Why do I fear crying real tears:

drops exploding over dear, dead Earth:

a queer mother-lode

drowning everything of worth?

Because... I loathe cathartic rebirth?

Why do I dread dying.

But not: death’s swift wrath;

or ridiculous pearly gates;

or the smelly sulphurous bonfires of hell;

or blessed absorbed oblivion;

or checkmating the grim reaper

(visiting early, before the late tolling bell)?

Because... agony is an able arbiter?

Because... for a razor-sliced second

all is well?

Why do I always hide from suicide:

returning, flushed with pride,

to the tried norm:

a pliable, imperceptible aberration

hiding in rational form

within wider bell-curve order?

Because... I’m crushed that time so cruelly lied:

it’s not truly on my side, while life is primed

for the unruly rushing ride?

Why do I drink to health?

Because... this naughty boy fancies the odds?

Because... my half-wit fit-bit tells me tells me not to quit?

Because... the onslaught of alcohol makes me a hypocrite?

Because... life is wrought with perils and finished in a lickety-split.

Because... I'm distraught and may be losing it?

Because... life is sodding fraught?

Because... life is for bitter loving?

Because... rapture can be bought?

Because... you cannot capture those already caught?

Why? Why? WHY?

Caught in endless cyclical thought.

Because, because, BECAUSE!

Because... life is too short.