by Roxie Powell

Like all the rest of life
Seventy five came and went
And I went to bed
Curiously free of cares and
Complexity

Next morning, lying awake
Staring into nothing, thinking
Nothing
Something in my consciousness
Startled me there in the dark
Allowing me to grow aware of
A new pattern
which had emerged.

This pattern seemed important
Not for what it contained
but for what was absent.

The gauze – like web which had
Always clouded my clarity
Was absent,
My sense of understanding
the one thing which had
Been with me from the beginning
Which was the exact and perfect
Experience of my death
Was lifted.

A lucidity as fresh as new life
Dwelt in my consciousness —
I felt born again,  I laughed
There in the dark,
Me ? Born again — at age zoom ?

How ridiculous could life be ?
And then I knew: more
Ridiculous than I could imagine;
So I surrendered to the void
whatever it is that remains.

by Andrew Hoyem

Looking down over, it must be,
Kansas, I see snow, patterns
of agriculture, showing through,
rectangles with diagonals and
circles for automated farming,
made, seemingly, by Mondrian.

by Andrew Hoyem

The super stadium sustains all games.
Planted, planked, padded, paved, painted,
Territories to be won and winnings counted.

The stadt is a city, and the city has a place
Where the populace gathers to witness
Winnings and losses each by each.

The larger world is a small stadium
Devoted to demonstrating how the universe
Works by chance, by determination.

By intelligent design do we know disarray,
The way things fall apart, how we dis –
Remember the important things.

Stupidly, we see and hear and say
What needs to be said, heard, seen,
While we still can, not when not.

by Andrew Hoyem

Start your engine.
Get set, go.
Push on the accelerator.
Step on the brakes.
Slow to a stop.
Get out of the contraption.
Crawl to destination.

Start your engine.
Idle a while.
Smell the fumes.
Pretend you are driving.
Imagine going someplace.
Turn off the motor.
Just sit there.

Start your engine.
Rev it up.
Put it in reverse.
Back it up.
Look in the rear – view mirror.
Return to point of origin.
Become a child again.

Start your engine,
Your heart, that is,
From the womb.
Begin to breathe at birth.
Be the body a vehicle;
Mind, the driver.
Fuel, combust, exhaust.