A drink of a berry I can’t resist,
quenching a thirst, I hadn’t known I’d missed.

Such is the feeling of being near you,
with nectar infused, like leaves gather dew.

Like a bee near clover, found lavender,
Here now and always, to be your tender.

To keep your flowers clad, and in love swept,
could I steer fate, petals forever kept.

I vow to, in strength and weakness, bloom go,
to in drought and deluge, together grow.

An ace burns a hole in my sleeve,
“Cheaters never prosper”
– but boy do they dry-bleed.
Yet I’m a fool who can’t be helped,
folding a hand I wasn’t dealt.
Revealing the trick to the dealer,
Equalized, a real fate self-sealer.

Trace a line between You and I,
seems the sharpest edge, us divide.
Alike in mind, but not derived
from the same stock, you might deride.

Now, say you break a rock in twain,
are the two stones separate or the same?
and now, what of your brain?
If lobotomized, are both halves you, and sane?

What if we start from scratch,
Dust some atoms off, make them latch.
Build a man and another one to match.
Can’t you see, how it can all just detach?

Now listen up, still think we’re alive?
How can specks of dust die?
Big word for dust to collate,
speculate that it has a fate;
that due to mass it can transcend state.

How funny,
For a pile of dust to call itself alive,
Decide what is and isn’t to survive.
Funny, to call itself something so small,
to think that it can die at all,
that there’s something there to lose,
that any of us are here at all.

All things have borrowed form,
No edges, with that as a norm.
The universe itself is zero sum,
seeming edges flatten, succumb.

Skin slick, face pale, eyes leak,
as blood begins to habit speak:
“Shelter seek, three doses deep”

through veins the poison seeps,
through chinks in armor creeps,
the painless pins to flesh prick,

But it’s a trick, a sick mind’s flick.
Lights out – got candle, no wick.
Sealed up, truth begins to stick:

So far gone – home but homesick.
Be sludge, slammed, must quit.
No more man, lost all wit.

Now where’s the respite?
green sign, nearest exit?
Come play friends in my cesspit.

Though yesterday was full of you –
Clear water, tadpoles, muddy shoes –
These eyes forget and today is new.
Like a pond I woke, fresh and blue.

New day, remind me of your deeds –
Frost melting off green lily leaves,
fog lifting among yellow reeds –
Come thaw me through this morning.

I am the unchanging core
be it broke or borne
this heart of stone is me

I am the bodied void
be it thrashed or torn
this shape of bone is me

I am the thundering vow
be it snuffed or scorned
the will inside is me

I am the soothing song
be it mocked or mourned
the voice inside is me

CG Ragnar