stipulate

 At last there will be a last gasp, a tremble before the final curtain, the structure’s vast collapse. All the burdens borne, all the grief beset flesh at last released. The unfinished business finished none the less, the work, the love, the leisure done at a stroke. Shapeless and changing, given all at once away. Neither woe nor consolation, neither trick or treat will reach. The lassitudes will be paramount as the flame gutters and goes out. It isn’t really a whole lot of help while the clock is still on, but like the heat death of the universe or the sun’s eventual devouring of the inner planets, it is the kind of perspective that gives some comfort to a certain sort of mind. Like a will that will stipulate the journey of all your loot and treasure, but for the moth and maggot set. 

The day arrives a little busier than usual, with fire truck and ambulance flashing their lights in front of a neighbor’s drive, and the animals restless to begin the rituals of the dawn. I remain agnostic to the immediacy, bound by blankets and an aversion to the world to my meager bed. The dogs at least delay the parade of the lost and the dead and the evil all about. The music softly shuffles and the cool ministrations of the fan feel almost cold as the hour of alarm approaches. It is easier than waking, shed of some distant dread or amniotic comfort, the aura of the other story and all the strange explanation abruptly dispatched for this same old sorry notion of worthless flesh and bones. A name I never took to, and the reasons left unmentioned.

The hours creep, all dust and grease. The empty is always on. Little tricks with dirt and bricks, tiny tasks all flame and ash. The war rages on while the election theft is telegraphed, vile brutal cowards and the associated guilty doing on camera what they once did beneath the cover of night. The bright and the beautiful lose direction and are stricken down, falling to plague and injury, and the ubiquitous hailing bullets. Knowing how you’re going to go is half the battle. Unless stricken down sooner, political violence will take me along with many, many others. No one wants me much anywhere, I am unwelcome even where I live, but my blood spills just fine. The earth and I still sing along, same old chestnut, same old song. Now that my fire’s all but out, I am but delayed dirt, the watched pot of passage here for now. Loosed, perhaps then purchase for fresh roots. Finally a chance for something good to grow.