Shadow and Light: The Transitory
Summer, 2004
RD Armstrong
What Keeps Me Going
The fear of madness
Is nothing
It's an academic tease
A ploy
A ruse
A technique
A bluster
That inspires boys and girls to envy
Solitude is a pleasant maze
Another distraction
Solitude is a new coat of paint
On a very old story
It is a world that exists
Outside the box
Outside my skull
Beyond the blade
Laid flat on a pale forearm
Where the party
Never stops
Even as the condemned
Drop
Even as the worms take over
The world decays
And is remade
Constantly falling down
And building back up
Quantum physics meets
Destruction derby
Listen between syllables
You can hear it
The interplay between
Death and life
Life and death
It is a chattering
Animated sound
Lost in the murmur of voices
In the chaos and clamor of desire
It is the simple act of drinking
A cup of tea or breaking bread
Or seeing a cloud unhinged in the
Evening sky as if