There Can Never Be An Ending to What Never Was

A poem, illustrated

The way the trees swarm each other in this intimate twilight

Reminds her of shadow puppets declaring their corrupt desires

For a self-annihilating ecstasy that can never be realized.

What draws them toward this forbidden fruit?

What causes this insatiable curiosity for that

region outside of thought or language, universe-within-universe,

Recursively fractal, compulsively repeating, infernal, interminable?

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Such that, as with, because:

Words splinter, coagulate, become “other.”

Forgotten words gather in the burning forests, our brains grapple

to hold this civilization as hyper-object,

extruding gloomy clumps of history.

Those who know, don’t speak.

Those who tell, can’t spell. Those who fell

The giants swing their mighty axes.

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Those who built their fragile persona

In a billion TikTok reels, declare their virtual mastery of

The propaganda of the Self: Pampered, irresolute, dissipate

Sovereigns of emptiness, folding into the

Wordless womb.

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On this night that is unlike all other nights, there will be

An end to endings: A beginning-less transference of quantum

Oomph to a hideous, disengaged “something” which, with its

Huge baleful eyes and shaggy fur, marches upon Bethlehem like some

Sniveling beast waiting to be returned to the seller, based on poor

Amazon reviews.