OUT OF TRANSLATION

for Kevin Smith


I walk right here on the street
there is powerful knowledge
in my deoxyribonucleic acid
so many passers seem
absorbed in apathetic particulars
related to the worst of the moment
that my heart is hard to believe
and regardless it lifts me up
knowing the coming radicality of change
when we will not be here.


When all the dissolved mantles
give way through our upwards
to the whole lake of antimatter
and we find the fumbling of our tongues with foreign languages
reflecting barrenly on the faintness of our own
and the mind and the hands of the mind
fail at rescue
and the whole project of human affairs
is more taxing than the idea of nothingness...


These days I don't believe in narratives.
I don't bother with ideas.
Planning one's existence is ruthless to the soul
and we all try it, relentlessly.
I want to give up on reality
to stretch my arms into another dimension
but instead I jerk off
wash my kitchen and my cutting board
take some vitamin pills
with an egg and spinach sandwich
and walk to the post office
waiting for its reality to be
almost obliterated
by the blitzkrieg of maniacal history
and the uncoerced erosion of the stars.