It must be Spring.
The begonias are vomiting diesel
Again, 
Leaf blowers are whining like scapegoats
Condemned to die
Again
In a swirl
Of garbage and leaves,
And I don’t feel like being alive today.

Why must I 
Again
Salute the pilfered flag
That just yesterday I glibly waved?

Somewhere a monstrous, moody moon
Lingers like a flashlight in an alley,
Plunges her sequined syringe
Into my unwitting, smoggy veins.

Somewhere bird watchers
And gardeners 
And beekeepers
Swoon like submissive violins.

It must be Spring
Again.
I am choking on the dew.
I am lost in a maze of barbed-wire-wool,
Still cold, lacerated, hemmed in
Again
Like a fiery torment of acid tears
Spilling into a perverse pool
Of my own making,
And I don’t feel like being alive today.

Who are you
To assure me
That life is regenerative?

Somewhere I know that you are right,
But I don’t care. Not now.
I am an oil derrick
Wheezing night and day;
My demise is bound up in my riches,
And I don’t feel like being alive today.

Somewhere it is Fall
And somewhere it is Summer
And somewhere it is Winter
And maybe here it isn’t even Spring:
How quickly, how often the seasons change!

I am sober. I’ve never done a drug.
But the begonias are vomiting diesel
Again
And I don’t feel like being alive today.

Written April 24, 2018