TEMPLE DOWN   (3-25-91, 12:30am, San Diego, California)

       
just as        
my mind        
in child        
so too        
my temple        
i defiled        
ive made        
myself        
the pawn        
now gods        
next move        
may find        
me gone        
below  above        
beyond        
anyones        
understanding        
much less        
my own        
as i        
wait here        
intuitively        
ever listening for        
each new        
uncertain
break of dawn  
to quietly come    
open hearted        
undemanding        
without any        
resistance        
at all        
so when        
each new one      
comes        
i try      
to surrender  
my ego mind    
so i can let go        
of all      
my fears      
and doubts      
of any old  
fear born  
fear based  
prior expectations  
i still might have  
or be holding  
onto  
so i can simply      
let it all  
unfold        
more naturally      
on it s own      
as it      
always has  
and does  
and always will do   
with or without        
me here      
so mystically      
perplexed      
beyond my      
conscious oneness      
with it all  
and despite  
this trying  
conflicted juxtaposition      
of where it is    
i am here now  
so profoundly    
diminished
yet equally strengthened  
as well
through my silent
unnoticed
completely unheralded
heroic endurance
of so many  
nightmarishly devastating
near impossibly
unsurvivable
truly hellish long decades
of years
continuously filled
with so much  
painfully horrific
continuous  negative  
subtraction  
from my life  
from who i once was  
into who i so
monstrously became     
for so many  
long walking dead years  
so hopelessly lost  
in the unsettled dust  
of my completely  
unraveled past  
with my life  
the life i once knew  
and lived so well  
now so long cast off  
into and beyond  
the great dark  black  
bottomless abyss  
of no deposit
of no way out
of no return
my prematurely stolen life
my entire being
and world
each and all sucked off
and away up into
some unimaginably
unspeakable
immeasurable
black hole s  
seemingly inescapable
all powerful
all consuming vortex s
dark  doomsday
insatiably tight appetite s grip
which eventually
had stolen every single atom
molecule and living cell
of my body and being
all but one tiny  pin point  bright
distant star of light
containing my eternal spirit and soul
away so very far  far away
hurled off and away into the  
bottomless  boundary less depths
and surreal outer limits
of it s forever gone
land of no return
or so it seemed
and truly was
back then at that time
for just about everyone
back then who were all in
the same unsalvageable
completely intractable
automatic death sentence
diagnostic prognosis
sinking boat situational reality
as me
except for me
somehow it seems
here now almost forty years later
for whatever unknowable
mysterious reasons
of the ineffable great mystery
great spirit s
unfathomable will s
own higher  highest spiritual plan s
pre destined or re destined
ever mysterious  higher purpose for me
perhaps either may
or may not be
for me
i can only presume
to imagine
but cannot here presently
truly know  say
nor all that clearly see
even here now
nearly forty long gone years later
with me still here
and in some ways
even more vibrantly alive
and kicking now
in body  mind  heart and spirit
than at any time ever before
which only further
proves to me now
that i indeed
am inseparably one
with the great mystery
great spirit
even if only the great spirit s
shadow way down here
upon this wondrous
earth below
for i too still am
nonetheless
an insolvably baffling
great mystery myself
as i ve so long now
have always been
in so many countless other ways
since even my earliest childhood years
on into and now far beyond
all those many other
even stranger
but so thankfully
gratefully
miraculously to me
now mostly and mercifully long gone
darkest memories
although with some still not yet
quite fully faded
from my mind s more deeply repressed
and  or self suppressed
darkest  most painful to recall
subconsciously compartmentalized memories
which perhaps were all just
another subconsciously created
innermost survival strategy
unknowingly utilized at the time
to desperately try and more deeply
preserve and protect
whatever  what little
remaining either may
or may not have been left
of my profoundly wounded psyche
soul and increasingly deteriorating
overall entire  rapidly disappearing
hollowed out shell of my critically ill
truly long dying being back then
perhaps  unknowingly to me
at that time
to psychologically mask
to fool and fake
my atrophied brain s
persistently terrified mind
into thinking and desperately believing
that this was all still
only a very bad
seemingly never ending
impossibly cruel
not really living
devastating nightmare
hieronymus bosch like
true living hell
here on earth
which in so many ways
my life and personal world here
truly became
back then
during and throughout
all those truly unbearable
insufferable nightmare years
of my own eviscerated health s
doomed  derailed life journey s
true personal
darkest end time s
lost cause
catastrophic
medically unstoppable
most hopeless
spiritually slighted
or who knows
perhaps
possibly even
spiritually blessed and graced
strange  mysterious fate
which felt like
was shown
and universally believed back then
both medically and scientifically
to quite literally and figuratively be
based on enough empiric evidence
from that collective
global  pandemic s reality of course
set in immutable stone
and which so permanently
forever changed the apocalyptic course
of my life      
as i once knew it
almost immediately
as soon as it first appeared
and came or was brought
into this world
which brought into my own
this dark transition s  
medically diagnosed  
prognosis s  
intractably inescapable  
death sentence    
which then also came
to take its decades long  
truly hellish  
death grip hold  
on me
and everyone else it so savagely seized
and so quickly took
and stole
all their beautiful
young
once living souls
in so many unspeakable ways
away from this world
away from us all
and then  
instantly began  
to so mercilessly  
take it s seemingly  
never ending  
completely  
dehumanizing  
transformational  
though not in a good way  
profoundly subtractive  
toll on me too as well
throughout it s   
long  slow  hopeless      
journey      
and it s relentlessly  
ever changing     
countless  unbearable  
accumulative  
terminal  inhuman terror s
daily  nightly
unending trials and tribulations
with non exaggerated capital T s
which so continuously
so relentlessly befell me back then
when there was no surviving at all
for all those other walking dead
forgotten
discarded
rejected  dejected
completely abandoned
frequently disowned
walking dead end ghosts like me
at the time
to presently      
bring      
me here      
so lost      
though not      
completely yet      
deep within      
its one way  
terminal  
fatal spell  
where i  
nevertheless  
somehow still  
continue to transcendently  
persist  
to positively persevere  
in my own  
experientially  
hard learned  
hard earned  
optimistic  
glass half full way  
in and from which  
i continue  
to just keep  
riding on  
moving on  
living on  
as best      
i can  
with what i have  
with all i have  
with all i am    
unafraid      
of death      
or life    
long had    
my fill    
of each  
still gluttony  
of the latter  
remains my  
deepest vice  
leaving  
this wearied      
prisoner    
though mostly    
of my mind  
at this point    
within this      
other illusory  
self incarcerated prison  
of so called  
human linear time      
just biding    
its constant    
now    
going      
with      
the flow      
here in      
the spiraling      
vortex      
of its    
shattered matrix      
surrendered      
ive become    
this resilient    
passive witness      
more now      
to its further      
even greater    
inevitable    
letting go      
than to      
my own      
alone    
though    
really not    
at all    
in the shifting  
context  
of those    
much too fleeting    
moments  
of lucid    
spiritual clarity  
wherein    
i am  
reminded of  
and now more clearly  
more purely see  
experientially know  
and fearlessly live  
again  once more  
as i wait  
ever listening  
with increasing patience  
now  
for each new  
break of dawn s  
approach  
in open hearted  
undemanding  
silent anticipation  
for the inevitable grace  
and long awaited  
blessed relief  
of my eternal soul  
and spirit s  
radiant  great escape s  
final  sweet  
transcendent release  
away from all this  
unfathomably unbearable  
any longer  
tragically twisted  
cruel  sad hand of fate  
of living this  
false life lie  
i ve now for so long  
for far too long  
so grievously been handed  
of not really living  
more fully  
of not truly living  
at all any more  
never again  
never  
that is  
as in  
hopefully  
never  
forever  
more