What does one do
in the face of certain doom?
What can one make
of the melting afternoon?

What is worthwhile
when a peer through the fog
shows a headless chicken choir
in the absence of God?

What does one write
when no one is reading
besides those who write faster
from hard hearts a-bleeding?

Where does one start
when the middle is approaching
and passing one by--
when the end is encroaching?

Why should I care?
Why should I bother,
if foolish millennia
are making me fodder
for mountains to feed on
as they blot out these errors?
What can be made yet
of this Common Era?

What is the purpose of questioning now?
What is purpose of saving the cows?
Where is salvation, and where is deliverance?
Where is the Judge from whom to beg forgiveness?

Forgiveness from what
besides sloth and lust?
We are made sick and blind
and commanded to trust,
commanded to do,
to do good and be well,
commanded to prove,
and threatened with hell.

What is a hell
if not the absence of hope,
the absence of God,
and a bottle of dope?

What is a heaven
and why should I wonder,
if life is an ocean
I'm roiling under?

What is this poem,
and where does it end?
I am terrified.

11/12/2014

Posted on 11/12/2014
Copyright © 2024 Ryan Nardi