dispatched

(written on a computer)

it's a dispatch from the last room that
still has air.
you do have to fear death after all.
you can say
'i've got the whole
rest of my
life'
and
in the end
that is the point.

thrushes come back every year
and still
these worlds can find ways
to incinerate
just about anything -
every story worth telling contains
a narrow passage.
look at the blackened
remains of
me or you
fallen from our nest and
cybernetically
repaired.

these are some things i doubt i'll ever learn to fix:
head gaskets and hard drives,
whole cities flattened -
the grotesque phantoms 
of infancy

***

neither foolish nor brave, the minutes are
lost into moments open and filled with
microscopic magnificences.
songs of despair and joy - songs of
protection that cannot
be torn - like a discrepancy in the
facts a small paw
can exploit.

climb the face
of this thing.
dangle from ropes
bolted to roosevelt's nose -
have you seen the latest reading
from the dynamo?
labratory peppers have
lifted their weight
a thousand-fold.