Apparently it has been said
that two lions guard
the door to enlightenment. But
Paradox and Confusion, two
of the best friends a guy could
hope to leave behind,
seem more like two winos
blocking the door to your
apartment, never trying
to avoid enlightenment,
though they don’t know it.
You could step over them
but you’d risk their awakening.
I wish I were an abstraction
in the form of a non-cognizant
but ferocious mammal. Not only
would I be warm-blooded
and highly respected and
sporting a non-thinning mane
but I could save all the time
I now spend attempting
consciousness. It’s also been said
that I tend to tend more toward
the cold-blooded (possibly
reaching luke-warm if sunshine
heats up the lagoon) and not
regularly regarded, since I’m
off swimming around, looking
for the world I swim in, which is
funny if I think about it,
which I can’t. I’m like Prufrock
in his flannel pants, pushed
around by a Symbolist,
three teeth cracked on peach pits,
love life always aground
around tea-time, sleeping
just out of earshot
so as not to drown.

Shoulders and knees unyieldingly mature!
Mine slide bone over offending bone and
puff like tough balloons, fueling refusal
to move. Once, my shoulders were boulders. Once,
my knees weren’t tricky. I’d sic ‘em on lifts
that deep-sixed me, rips willed invisible.
I saw them scoring jealous stares, mistook
injury for max-burn musculature.
They saw the future, the facts that would soon
ooze, their doomed hinges undone with stickum.