During A Lucid Interval

During a moment that I realized much later had simply been wasted

I caught a glimpse of the endless futility in all of my efforts

During an instant when I saw a fleeting outline of what might have mattered

There appeared the lasting realization of my own eternal worthlessness

During the war I lost my bearings but still kept on obeying every order

I saw myself from afar committing those endless acts of horror

During an interval in which life forced me to stop and think

Besides you, I found but little that I could truly count on

During that time when I might as well have been underwater

I saw the surface from below, and it was bright with hazy detail

During the flash I was not sure if I saw at last or had just been blinded

Then came the worry that I had never really known the difference

During an era where I crawled from the baking mud to the steaming swamp

I often looked back with fondness upon the clear blue sea

During a meeting through which I sat as if in deepest torpor

I saw myself actually permitting them to bleed my short time away

During my recovery I realized just how often I had almost died

So I tried on other futures in front of that newly illuminated mirror

During a sunrise in which I found that I was tired through and through

It seemed an eternity to yet another evening without rest

During the long trip, all of my normal routines were broken

And slowly I realized how little else was left there, inside of me

During the springtime as I became older

There came the knowledge that I grew more slowly every year

During a dream I convinced myself to no longer be so sure..

Of all those things I was seeing when I thought I was awake

During my illness I finally had the opportunity to ponder

At last I was cured, but my time to act had come and gone

During my short trip there was so much new to see

Arriving back home my eyes quickly closed up, once again

During the morning a birdsong captured my attention

I was quite aware for a moment then fell back into dull normalcy

During a lifetime spent always looking forward to now-forgotten non-events

Abruptly came the instant that would have to last me forever

During my trial I made up no new lies

But parroted the adopted truth of others as an armor of my own

During the time that the sun grew ever hotter

The sandbanks grew too warm to shelter my clutch of eggs

During the snowstorm things were perfectly clear

Then came the next day and once again I was no longer very sure at all

In the light before the dawn it seemed as if things could actually make sense

Then slowly everything dissolved back into that dusty chaos beneath the hot sun

During the stage where I was forced into thinking, I could not sleep

Mercifully it was decreed that I should not have to be so alive forever

During the executive speeches I felt an alienation tinged with anomie

Returning to my cubicle I re-donned a simple but protective cynicism

During the excitement I saw the expression of the pitchmen

After the sale, both parties were drained as if by hot sex

During the future things always seem to go faster than before

Luckily the past is not exactly what it once used to be, anymore

During this moment I tried hard merely to pause

I had planned so long for this instant and it was gone in a flash

During these thoughts both our minds wandered off

Now you stray farther taking some part of me with you

During the entire period of my personal devolution

I helped emit photons which must travel on forever thru space

During a particularly comatose and vegetative recreational interlude

I felt I was partially restored by emitting CO2 to make manly noise

During my blindness my hearing became quite acute

I heard you smiling as we lay in each other’s arms, quiet and still

During hibernation from critical thinking I slept-walked with all the others

Like most, I was never called upon to actually awaken

During the war only simple thoughts of our home could sustain us

Meanwhile we strove to exterminate just those same things of our enemies

During an epoch in which I browsed the floating plants of the ponds

There came the notion that things might not be what they seemed

During a commercial I merely glanced at the time and then went quite blank

Later in hospital I wished I might have thought of something better to do

During any form of beat down there was no ambiguity

Then came the might-haves, would-haves, should-haves and could-haves

During that instant as I flew through the air

I thought perhaps there awaited a transcendent moment

During the full moon many things moved around

At that time it was easy for me to happily scuttle about, quite unnoticed

During the celebration of that final great victory over our satanic enemies

I was struck by surprise at how little we actually knew of them

During a briefing I noted the officials appeared quite cheerful and optimistic

Up tempo despite the obvious and unstated facts quite to the contrary

During the monsoon as I sat watching everything washing away

I saw at last the wisdom in this new way of life

During years of study I realized how much smaller my knowledge appeared

So I grew more and more wary of all those who prattled on so very glibly

During the night I was awakened by some terrible unknown inaction

I lay for hours uneasy and then came a merciful unconsciousness

During my so-called career I was silenced by pretexts of professionalism

Yet no voices were raised against the many useless, backbiting, lazy suckups

During the end of anesthesia I remember swimming ever upward

I was trying very hard to hold my breath to the surface, far above

During the time when the icicles grew longer by the day

We worried about the pale sun as it kept coming later and leaving earlier

During early June we knew things would always keep getting better

I was convinced I was never meant to grow old like my father

During my last years I tried to remember what I had always wanted

Finally it seemed I was merely waiting for the last thing I would recall

During the epidemic I helped gather children’s bodies

Soon they began to wave to me from all their grotesque positions

During my first prison sentence I learned from the real masters of crime

Back on the street I vowed never to be apprehended again

During some party function the vodka finally got the best of me

Three days later I began that long train ride east in a cattle car

During her flight from the conflict she often slept in untended barns

To get a bath she might well have to bargain her wretched self

During his trial the old women hissed and spat

Fatherless children looked to the court for some explanation

During the bombings we huddled and the blood came from our ears

Later we saw that our only drinking well had been totally destroyed

During the long march they lost all contact with their homes

Thusly, was it easier for them to burn distant villages to the ground

During his lifetime our great leader always pointed out the proper way

Without his strict guidance we quickly fell into a savage ethnic cleansing

During the fire it grew dark and the smoke tinged all of our thoughts

Reports from far away hinted of a vast destruction

During my pregnancy I was raped and then kicked by the partisans

Later they returned and left me toothless but with child once again

During the hottest part of the day I could find no hope as I toiled

Still, when the merciful clouds brought gentle breezes I felt spiritually uplifted

During my lifetime I always tried to imagine those billions of years

But in the end, my 3 score and 10 still seemed like the larger part of forever

During my father’s slow passing we stood carefully, forehead to forehead

As if after long head butting we might at least part in peace