Anthology

Recently a friend of mine named Joseph was coaxed into such a sharing mood that he presented this poem to me. I share it with you here:

Driving ten hours a week,
ten hours closer to death, desensitized to waking
in a metal death box,
sunset in the rearview,
clouds don’t need to be painted oils—

the sky already looks like oils.

Fire red, fucking silly,
did you ever wonder
if there’s a thought out there,
so beautiful it would
kill you?
A thought so perfect it
would pop your brain,
send you straight
into immortality,
infamy.
Do you think it is there?
Have you wondered so since you were a child? Would it stop time,
just before the brain is
thrown into the logical blender?
It is surely an explanation,
so simple,
that every bit of thinking
would come to the fore,
never think again of hunger,
movement, bowels or growing,
all for a thought
bigger than death,
bigger than human.

Ever since, I have regarded him with much suspicion.