The Science of Love (for Anita )

One : Geology
The Appalachian Mountains
have risen and fallen
three times. They
were once higher
than the Rockies,
the Andes even. Time
restored the hairline to their
crown.

Two : Cosmology
Learned scientists say
the universe is fifteen billion
years old. Give or
take a billion. The Solar
System is five billion years
old. Our planet is only a few
hundred million years younger.
The Earth is but a babe.

Three : Mathematics
Theoretically,
infinity suggest neither an end
nor a beginning to time. Not even
‘the word’ as suggested
by scripture. I think something
was here first, even if it was only
nothing. When nothing remains,
it will be something.

Four : Love
I may have stepped
into the mist of consciousness
to find you. Someday that light
shall too pass, shrouded
by the mist. I must say
that forever is a lie,
but you captivate me
while I am alive.

The Moment the Gun Went Off.

The gun went off. The shotgun went off and through the roof of the truck. The bullet ran through the thing corrugated metal that covered the driver from the elements, the harsh sun that shines down in the harsh South African summer.
The bullet was ripping through the sky, the bullet crushing each individual molecule. The nitrogen, the hydrogen and the oxygen all ran out of the way of the hurtling mass of steel with a carbide tip. The other trace elements were able to find a way out too. They moved aside, and then were able to fill in the vacuum that was created in the shockwave. The bullet ripped through the blue sky. Looking to the sun, in the spots created by the buckshot, in glimmering light piecing through the roof, spotlighting little speck on the vinyl seat, and the volume of Thomas Gunn on the seat.
Van der Vyver looked up through the shattered holed in the ceiling of his truck. There was no longer the light shining through the holes. Some of them were blocked with the slumping head of the man who was riding on the back of the truck. A thick viscous liquid seeped through the small holes in the truck. The crimson sang decorated the seat and the volume of Thomas Gunn lying on the seat.
The white farmer pulled the truck over, and started to scream. He did not know where the bullet hit. He did not know that the shotgun blast ripped the head of the black man riding on the back of his truck. He did not know that the man on the back of his truck was dead. All he knew is that at the time, he wished it was him who was slumping on the cab of the truck; he wished it was him, and not his young son who had his blood dripping through the roof. On the inside, their blood was the same. On the outside, the society would not know the difference.

The Lotus Eater

Today the grand inquisitor came to my room, but, hearing his footsteps from far off, I hid under a chair. Seeing I wasn’t there, he began calling out.
Nikolai Gogol, “Diary of a Madman”

at my right hand in the
twilight, on streets
you seldom tread:
slouching to bedlam
the tombs of our dead
remind us of paper lost
from the garbage man
littering these streets

and the firelight embrace
holds us in the sepulcher
I find you melting
from my eager fingers
& the world falls away.
Deep space in the distance,
lungs inhaling nothingness
the sun blisters my skin.

Awake,

I lie alone, the phantom
remains, the softness
in my arms, the blonde
whispers are but gossamer
strands, imaginary gasses
invading the space.

Then,

on streets we both tread,
you at my left hand,
the morning haze shines
in the streetlights.
Why is there never enough
darkness?
Or does courage come
only to the lotus eaters?