Bad Business

Night crept into my blood
Overwhelmed me
Woke up wondering
where my memories
had gone

Experience

Is there a joy greater than watching children
of your own blood laughing and playing
in the early years of their lives?

Unencumbered joy. Happiness untainted
by any worldly concern.

Sometimes I wish I were these children.
Wishing I were freed of the burden of being,
the burden of knowledge.

These children will cease to be children one
day and I will mourn the passing of their
innocence into that of worldly knowledge.

I did not know, did not understand when
my change into experience occurred.
Am I still the child I feel in ancient memory?

At times, I do not feel the weight of my
years and experience. At other times
it weighs me to the sea-floor.

This late summer day overwhelms us
with it's heaving embrace.

It is good to be alive and feel this warmth.
The sweat of life. The passion.

Hold me tonight.

Final Scarcity

My old memories will be of little use to you in your search for water.
Even now, after all these years, it's still hard for me to fathom how far
we have fallen in my life. Water was so plentiful as to be absurd. You
could open a faucet in your home and it would pour right out, as if that
is how things had always been in human history. We would buy plastic
bottles filled with water, we'd fill portable containers with it, we would
bathe in it any time we felt the urge to be clean. It was always there
until it wasn't. Everything fell into chaos once supplies became scarce.
There was so much suffering and death. To die of thirst is the most
excruciating sort of death. Men, women, children, all condemned to die
due to lack of a basic need. The rich and powerful gloated for some
time until their stores began to run dry. In the end, their wealth and
power were nothing without water. It was then that what little remained
of civilization collapsed. Now, water is life. Water is more valuable
than diamonds, gold, or oil, ever were. This world is bathed in thirst.
Some say our world is dying. I say that it is not. We are dying. The
world will be fine once it has rid itself of us. Perhaps that has been the
plan all along. Soon there will be none like me left who remember
the old world and the hubris of our decadence. Only those born in this
time of endless thirst will remain, and the old world will be reduced
to stories and fairy tales that will scarcely be believed. What ever did
we do to deserve such a fleeting paradise? Even my memory has begun
to fail me. I wonder at times how much of the past was ever real.
All of it, I think. Then doubt is cast. We could never have been so
foolish. Yet, foolishness is always in overabundance. I grow tired.
I want to close these old eyes and dream of water flowing over my
body without any thought of it ever eliding into scarcity.

The Knock

Cool morning warming by the minute

Sun gathering it's strength

Cars leaving driveways

and gathering on clogged freeways

A pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen

Don't leave here

Don't leave home

Stay here

Stay safe 

from an uncertain world

Can we do this indefinitely?

The world will come

knocking

August

Blazing days of summer's fury
Nights covered in sweat
even under the gaze
of an oscillating fan

Did the child once known as Octavian
ever think of adopting a new name
Could he have ever guessed
at the events that gave rise
to the first among equals
as he was fond of saying

Many centuries and empires later
and his name is still spoken
Remembered in the glorious days
of warmth before the gradual chill
of fall resumes it's touch on our skin