downhill [a poem]

what's happening again?
right, i'm falling.
down there is the ground. i imagine i'll get there eventually.

what about the things i should have done?
the things i should have said
places i should have gone
people i should have spoken to?
my responsibilities are sloughing off like dead skin
and i wonder if i ever cared about them in the first place.

still falling.
i can only see the brown colour of the ground i am racing toward
it is silent except for the rushing wind
and i feel as if i am gliding
rather than crashing down.

the things i missed out on
do i resign my loss to fate?
did i ever have them
or were they products of my fertile imagination
suggesting schemes and scenarios to my psyche
the career i would work for
the house i would earn
the children i would raise
the wife i would love.

the ground is closer now.
scale becomes apparent as the ant people in the canyon look up at my shape
plummeting through the hot, dry air.

did i contribute?
what good have i done for the world
have i ever been anything other than a self-serving, craven animal?
will my soul suffer when my earthly form becomes one with the dusty earth?
will there be any trace of me left after my body becomes a corpse?
i wish i had thought about these things before it became truly necessary to know.
i'd have a plan or an understanding
at least a concept of what will happen to me.
i feel lost and ignorant.

i guess it'll end soon.
i only see blank faces below me
but i imagine their expressions of shock
i wonder if they realize that i am a person too.
here it comes.

darkness.

dinner party [a poem]

porcelain
fragile settings for a two faced event
silverware flashes by white china
dark agendas hidden by steely gazes

false charm
manufactured civility
the humanity here is preprocessed

eyes filled with acid flicker across the place settings
a double take of recognition
quickly the look withdrawn

what evil lurks beneath this preprocessed grace and elegance
for we all know it is merely a facade
lying under what we claim to be genuine

they display a visage of health, in fear
that the secret schemes of the species
will crack through the mask
and expose all of our gangrene intentions.