fear spreads as crackling wildfire
while words leak from these flimsy vessels
like foul air and bacteria
any action is useless now
It has managed to consume the senses
swallowing all reason in the process
what was once central to reality has now been reduced
to shadows and stray muffled noises
all human activity has lost purpose
personalities and social drama have become a footnote
the silence, and that which is beyond it,
is what occupies the mind now,
or what is left of it,
as thoughts unbuttoned to attention
dissolve upon arrival
the image before me is stronger than before
it's curves and highlights accentuate
its cubed dimensional illusion now -
though still nebulous and indistinct,
when I focus in on a particular area
the detail becomes sharpened
and the apparition appears more tangible
yet stepping away, I am still unsure
of what it is I am observing
Is it cloaked in some sort of other worldly science?
or is this some kind of gaseous weed from another dimension
grabbing energy and nutrients from our world
to serve its intent to contaminate every layer of awareness
in order to express its right to be
- but isn't that the way of all consciousness?
The sleepiness is what disturbs me most
I can hardly keep my eyes open anymore
I used to remember why I was tired
but that was before it arrived
a million years ago... or yesterday
whichever came first
I am no longer certain of anything
family, friends... memories may or may not exist
I am too tired and complacent to investigate
it would seem that if I bothered, that thing
would get stronger and I weaker...
it knows my thoughts
even repentance would be a chore now,
and I can't afford to give up any more ground
I'd like to say that I'm alarmed
but I've grown to accept its presence
I have tried patience to wait it out
I have shown it disrespect and yet it persists
I have ignored it and it grows closer
The funny thing is that I don't know what it is
and stranger still, I don't want to know
yet I feel less and less of what I was
and more and more of what it is
large gaps of time are lost as consciousness
sputters and starts and apathy
becomes a wall of immeasurable height
its loftiness is lost in the clouds where
A figure can be seen and then it's gone...
and yet I don't care, this thing is enormous
I can peer into it and see things now
that weren't clear before
I feel privileged for this in some way
does it recognize me and want to be friendly?
Today I thought I saw my grandfather in it
He was located in a patch about 30 degrees above the horizon
around a corner in an alley on a stool
as I approached him he spun away and I followed
there were angles and curves and varying degrees
of elevation to negotiate as he began to pull away
Yet I followed with great energy
Exhausted, I stopped to catch my breath and
there he stood motionless, featureless
without luster without love
I knew that if I dared look away
he would not be found again
am I backpedaling out of fear?
yet strangely, I have none, only emptiness and
an occasional spark of excitement when I think
I've seen something interesting in the cloud
then it is gone and something else appears
It is as though my dreams have materialized
outside my mind and I am watching the show
my access is limited to a very small slice
and I am grateful for both its ration and its mercy
I search around to see
if there is something left to offer it
Then I suddenly realize its scope and know
that it is the largest thing in the universe
is it apathy or is it fear
or is total acquiescence to the inevitable?
I feel absorbed, smothered in the protoplasm of an amoeba
my cellular baggage is the succulence
of another life form unlike anything known by my species
or maybe not a life form at all but a force
reckoning itself on realty like a damp cloth
treating every bit of struggle as an agitation
scrubbing the face off my world
in total disregard of its illustrious founding
the millenniums of stories still blowing in the wind -
just an afterthought to its slow mastication
I should be angry, I should be indignant
but what made me think these tales told
by accredited men draped in institutions of higher learning
were anything but fossilized lies
It is good that this is happening now
The paradigm is crumbling
hierarchical social impediments were constructs
of the master slave dynamic
that tightened the yoke and slammed the bite
on the teeth of freedom
so it could narrow the focus,
and draw straight lines,
and wake up from dreams
to step off the paces of repetition
and create the wheel of time
the ox and plough, the furrowed soil
The nine to five and the daily grind
We live to eat and eat to live
at some point the other shoe had to drop
how long could we stand by and take it?
There is no way of knowing whether
I am thinking my own thoughts
or the apparition is controlling them now
I do feel elated that it is so highly evolved
its superiority clearly demonstrated
and I revel in its splendor
I have lost all identity and probably
wouldn't even recognize my own likeness in a mirror
All the care and attention I once lent myself
I save for it now
I wake up wanting to see it, wanting to be with it
if I wake up at all
It is all I see, It is all I dream
I have learned something of great value
A gift not normally realized
in one's own lifetime
an understanding of consciousness
and how it is shared and
how it permeates all things,
how it is like space that thinks
as I lost myself I found another
that was the same as me yet I thought
so completely different
I fought against myself
who became a figure in the cloud
I could view with abject distain
to the point that I would chase after my own image
like a dog that chases cars
fruitless and absurd
and should I catch one it would kill me
So I ramble while images come to me as vapors
and ideas manifest as figures therein
I have been condensed to a thought generator
responding to external stimuli with exuberant
self lubrication and hard working organelles
and I've come to realize that it is I that give it life
it has stolen all that exists to give itself personality
the personality that is the sum of all its myriad parts
a personality of a chameleon or a yes man
a cheap knockoff without substance or backbone
a larval chrysalis yet without purpose
and I somewhere within it hang suspended
awaiting the gradual dimming of the light
or the sudden flipping of the switch
lending it my thoughts, my feelings
watching it digesting, agreeing, being
when will I give up?
but to what purpose would my demise serve
why would it destroy its power source?
or is that just my overinflated sense of worth?
It doesn't need me...
The world existed before I arrived
It has become that to which one returns now
I once praised the wonders of nature
and now it has become nature
It too is most beautiful
the more that I appreciate it and all its wonder
the more perfect and beautiful it becomes and besides
who am I to prefer one reality over another
I am still experiencing, I am still aware
But, if this is all but a projection
flashed at a speed quicker than my conscious mind
Why have I replaced a glorious universe
with a murky, smoky and featureless cloud?
what have I done?
This thing has unfurled from my head
erupting snakes of carbonic vapors in all directions
is it the impurity of my mind,
finally saturated and spilling over an ancient threshold,
that had always stopped the torrent in the past
clogged with the granular remains of bad decisions
and made brittle with buffoonery?
I have polluted the universe with dark matter
It was then I saw her
wrapped up in the cloud
confident and alluring
as if its sole purpose was to adorn her
she motioned to me to follow her
and I climbed over billowing boulders of smoke
parting veils of murky vapors
both depleting my energy and
restoring it with the burning hope
of coming face to face with this lovely apparition
the harder I clambered the further she advanced
she turned and seemed to laugh
the chill she sent up my spine
soon plunged into the fire down below
my intent stiffened and my resolve hastened
the pursuit of this goddess has enveloped me
and I seem to have forgotten my way back
yet it doesn't matter, there is nothing to return to
I have no home, I am a force of desire
intent to chase its own shadow
but another image in the cloud
fleeting, morphing, mocking all that sees
flooding the universe with hubris
and the repercussions of my growth
actually nothing has changed
