as an Older Man (Unfinished Stories
of Importance That Go in Improbable
Directions Leaving Mysteries and
No Real Solutions Along the Way)
Rather than drowning in flesh
(because my flesh wants to
drown and this has become
such an intense part of each
of my days) – let us not talk
of the natural ways that seem
easy, I would think, to under
stand, this flesh-drowning need
which, now that my lungs are
filling up with liquid. It tastes
of fire that is hot as blazes.
These words might come across
as confusing as trying to fit well
with what is happening, my new
way of feeling pleasure for pain.
But Do you have any painkillers?
is the butt of some sick joke that
my mind has been telling itself on
such a regular basis here in the,
can we call them the twilight of
my years? Hence, what confusedly
transpires, all too peacefully, I might
add, is the not knowing at all whether
I am drowning in the ecstatic throes.
An aside: as the mind goes differences
seem less and less clear if not altogether
irrelevant between mind-games (which I
always read more as fun and games) and sheer
near-lethal tragedy (my lungs are filling
with a liquid). As my lungs fill like a sponge
that has been sopping inside of a greasy left
over bowl that has just been stuck overnight
just so, before and detergent is spread with
water into the bowl, or before the precious
bowl, my favorite, gets placed gently in the
dishwasher (and it always leaves spots, but
we have come to think of this as clean enough)….
