old photographperson sitting on grasscigarette in hand person, grass, cigarette, smokeall gone to same
impermanence
Process
Do not process this experience. Just have it. It is not about anything. Not about leaving. Not about having fun. Not about you or anyone. It’s not about needing to participate.
Replaced
Most of my water escaped long ago too,and which one of us was reallydesigned to withstand the pressure? Slowly filtered through solid rock,the remains are all that remains: pyrite and calcite and Uranium. Armored fish patrolling the depths,consuming the soft, fleshy parts, anddisappearing into the crystal lattice.
The Unpicked
Dogs piss on lilacs and raisinsdie the death of grapes picked Everything changes and thoughtsare just sounds, all moving like strings picked Without wanting to look stupidwe are just kids in the kickball line wanting to be picked Cowards and cowboys and car thieves and cool kidsI become Buddha. I taste radicchio. I am not […]
Buddha Taught
Everything is in flux:our body heat, the flowof blood circulating throughthe arteries, even the thoughts in our heads, and the soundsbouncing off objects all around-the fluctuating voice cordsand the atmospheric pressure, too. Everything changing. The musclescontracting, skin cells dying, nailsgrowing, hair follicles too. Creaturescoming and going, the air itself, andthe self itself, all moving. Possessionsdissolving: CarsMoneyClothingBooksComputersHometownsConversationsDrugsAffairs […]
I Need My Used Book Store
Three Lives, in New York. From Intelligencer I need my used bookstore. The sensuous aromas of waxy skin jackets andmahogany shelves, paperskeletons in an excavatedashram of introspection.I need what it stashes awaybehind a Tom Clancy noveland an old National Geographic.Eureka! That one book, at sometime misplaced in my mind,appearing as a lost symbol ofwilderness, casting a garland-clothed silhouette, as flannel-shirted, torn-jeaned, leather- sandalled […]
The History of the Earth
The history of the earth is aconstrained blessing. With my warm human hands I receive it, knowing that it was the sun that Joshua commanded to be still. It was not the earth. The earthcannot remain still. As we move, with our families, in and out of dying,a flowing, syncytium over the earth. George Cassidy Payne is a poet […]
Unconscious of the Changes
Alone and ignored,rolled up like a napkinin a French bistro, zonedout to the blithe, unconditionedair, measuring the breathsof a caving fly, dripping rain, in a word. For in the tent the world losessome of its power. Rising through a web. Is it a Black Widow’s?Beauty above. Beauty below. With everythingout of my breath, holding onto what […]
Last Virgin Pine
Solitary and heavyunder the unseated saddleof an infinite sky, Immortality is a ruthless harvester of data: an endless string of half breaths from the last remaining virgin pine. Covered in a bright burst of December snowfall, the sunstruck diamonds smile back. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as […]