paddling paddling
paddling long
up that
cold old rapid river
battling against that
futile tide drowning in
the essence I used to call me
surrounded by bottomless time
whirlpools pulling me thereunder
dark clouds clapping thunder
I have been killed but set free in an odd
sort of harmony
floating downstream
dead and lifeless
flowing down
with overflowing human debris
the stream was victor
winning the war
over me.
suddenly
around the next bend
I heard rushing water
crashing crashing like no other
soon I drifted over the waterfall
falling like a helpless wetted leaf
submerged deep in a large lazy
river amongst many
faceless eternal friends
whose heads like mine
bobbed above the water helplessly
like red and white fishing floats…
those unnamed billions and billions of
souls who fought the stream paddling
throughout their lives had them cut short
for upstream they went against their gut
and challenged the current’s will
until it broke their spirit
like a broken back snapped like a twig
endless ages before I was born
when the mind of man emerged from
the darkness of his own skull
I was
one of them
an unknown soul
relentlessly paddling paddling
drifting aimlessly
in an endless pool of
nothing
such as God
intended.
.