Nowhere Man

What am I here for

After all I have gone through

to arrive at now starting only

say with this day at the end of it

as I turn the key and open the door

finally entering a room where my

presence is in fact slight and

everything simply something

the ambient sound created in the greater

world unrecorded at last

anonymous and immanent

The place appears to be as I

left it in spite of the innumerable differences

just the light for instance

shadows now misplaced

from where I left them this morning

What am I here for

The tip of a

machine-made pen on paper

applied with purpose spurs my vehicle

moving outside myself on a ride

an ancient animal still smelling faintly equine and

requiring maintenance not unlike the primordial

animal I rode in on some while ago

evolved to a mechanical beast like and unlike

similarly familiar to

mass produced others but

modified from the factory

specs to go just a bit

beyond one small

step of envelope distortion

The arrogance of ordinary persons

renews itself like hope among the hapless

Apparently no awareness of insignificance

gains admittance to their party

No shadow of a cloud so much

as threatens to dampen their spirited parade

How can I tell them except through my own acceptance of insignificance

I know that I am

nothing waiting for the

return of my nothingness

that my thoughts

noble and otherwise are

confabulations of dust and wind

something the breeze whispered in an empty place

water folding on sand miles from

anywhere or anything

nothing

nowhere

Even here longing to be

abstracted from myself as if my presence

my being were

an accident

the vehicle no longer

running and I

descended from it

crawling a short ways away

not so much tired as

desiring a distance

not so great

a small infinite

spacing from the eternal

questions of who are you and

why are you here and the

tediousness of constant sentience

the tedium of daily life

an exacted toll for passing this way like

filling up at the gas station in order to

drive to work

to earn money

to pay at the pump

more efficiently

I find myself in this bubble of utter clarity

If only I could think myself away

no longer having this sense of

being what I think of as me

of what I believe to be good or bad or indifferent

ashamed of the great and the trivial

of need and of volition and of acquiescence

obligation freedom indolence

of being involved or merely present

in this heavy freeway traffic

  What are we doing here

   all at this time going where

    where are we going

When next I enter a room

I would like to

be there and not be there

coming unnoticed and then

not noticing myself like

the movement of air as a door opens and

a change in the audibles

we tune out even as the door shuts and we

continue in the room as it was

After a day to arrive at now

starting only with this moment at an end

as I close the door finally

entering a room where my presence is

in fact slight and everything simply

something the ambient sound created

unrecorded in the greater world

at last anonymous and immanent and

the room appears to

be as I left it

in spite of the obvious

differences

of shadows for instance

the light now

misplaced

from this morning

when I left it

here and there

and nowhere

in particular

Casting the keys aside

putting away the thoughts of the outside impertinence

of expectations and obligations I seek

the solace of separation from a self

I cannot accept in my solitude

an identity not the me

I see without looking

Chewing a salad I find myself

apologizing to the lettuce

an evolution of saying grace

apologizing for the microbial

holocaust of my own usually ignored symbiosis

the imperialism and slave trade of my corporeal being

the collaboration of component biology

which allows the complexity and cooperation of organs

the underlying biological and chemical interchanges

resulting in this

the experience of so many moments

education

impressions

reflections

distilled and still

not strong enough

to remove the sting

the pang of essence

There is pleasure in the familiar

simplicity of a still life

a piece of bread

on a plate

and a bowl

half full of greens

I place the three-tined fork

where it should have been

    and where is that

and it occurs to me like a regret

regretfully as if it were something

uncompleted that no

work of imagination I have known

no composition

music movie performance or score

has been

abstract

enough

to satisfy my

rare appetite

Who can sit easily in fire itself must

serve as intermediary

water for the public bath and yet

I find in my own pot

stains requiring a stern brush and

fortunately a stern brush at hand

KLK

12/17/12