Breathing Silence

The thought parade keeps marching
Where’s the emergency exit from this Walmart basement
Of chattering mind
Is freedom hidden by the noise
The way tall downtown buildings
Block the sun
Making the sidewalks dark?

I like to tell my restlessness
That there’s way enough
In the present tense
To satisfy it
Refills are bottomless
Stay there
Sip and swill
Drink deep draughts of it
The forgotten future
And the undocumented past
Can wait
They’ll soon enough
Have you bouncing off the asylum walls
No surcharge at all
For that

I feel the urgency of surrender
To the god within
The rapture
Which comes over me
Breathing silence
A stillness that’s speechless
But not empty
Bursting instead with electromagnetism
Dancing away from unsolved tragedies

When I’m with it
The world
With all its fervor and dread
Is not with me

I don’t know what I’m doing
Or where I’m going in this life
But it’s taking me
Like a zip line through a rip tide
Destiny skating like a puck
Along the last Zamboni passes
Across the rink
In disappearing safety glasses

My path was part catastrophe
Partly masterpiece
The budget didn’t allocate a helmet for me
Somehow my other-worldly prowess was expendable
Yet not unmentionable
I was born with supernatural gifts
Like everyone
I could remember exactly where I was
As soon as I stopped thinking
Short shots and tall chasers
Filling out forms without erasers