Wondering

Left 

A high stack

Of little deaths

As I went,

Made it here, nonetheless;

 

How many

 Lifetimes are 

Left?

 

 River of Existence

Inching forward in morning traffic

Of school drop-off,

I peer into each car passing opposite—

See nameless beings:

Expressionless in solitude,

Smiling, smoking, singing, 

Funerary stares,

Maps of frustration;

While a child seated in back

Gazes out the window in dream…

Humans, so self-absorbed,

Distraught, bored, emotional,

Lost in boxes of mechanized metal;

Worlds, timeline ink-points;

Infinite, meaningless figures

Adding up to utter rotation;

Replacement, triviality.

 

I hope the coffee in the breakroom

Hasn’t been drained by the time I get there…

Don’t want to be the one

Having to make another.

 

Wandering through history

Pass slaves toiling their way

To unmarked graves;

To Gettysburg where a soldier’s bones were recently discovered

Lying as he died, 150 years ago, behind a tree;

A mighty Sioux Chief walks out of his tipi,

While his family peacefully sleeps,

He looks upon the blazing stars

(A commonality for all of humanity…

He has no idea, does he?);

A gladiator awaits his call

In the torch lit bowels of the Coliseum;

A final embrace frozen in Pompeii;

Socrates drinks the Hemlock…

The existential river

Feed by rain circles

While the people ebb and flow;

Our existence is Etch A Sketched 

By a God stuck in traffic.

 

I finally pull in to work,

Snap out of my epistemological trance,

Race into the building,

Hope to find my third 

Cup of coffee.