toward a ritual of disintegration

blackness breaks through
without vision
a scrambling, frazzled power

like the intense static of
an electric storm
or a jigsaw puzzle
of sense memories
feeling around at the edges of the known

fear is here
so is joy
playmates in recoding
the building blocks
cellular in size
of a pulverized psyche

after the remaining bits
are led along
past the corners of an infant’s gaze
looking up from its cradle
onto the surface of a toy
held by long adult hands

spirit tongue moves
like a flayed member
whipping itself back and forth
dying a bodily death
as a hail of gray thought
drops hard

falling much like a spent lover would
on a mattress of dissolution
or a Quetzal’s long plume
as it descends through space and time
gracefully
in a dance of worship

live in the question
live in the wonder
they say
wings undulating
correcting, balancing —
the physical & collective memory
of everything that is
ever was
and will be

the main repository of all
shuts itself (for now)
accompanied by the lulling
monotonous vibration
of a cricket’s chirp

seducing the spent mind
onward its nightly fate
a psychopomp in disguise
leading this poor fool
toward a ritual of disintegration