The other night,
I witnessed my face
Superimposed on the head
Of a heavenly body.
He was a vessel
Carrying the spirit
Of a higher being.
Upon these mountains
Overlooking an atmosphere
Filled with clouds
And suppressed dissent,
I sit and pray silently,
Hoping that salvation
Reaches a troubled land
Maimed by torture and imprisonment.

Within my power
Lies poverty
And its continuum
Throughout the span
Of this lifetime.
Regardless of how it all ends,
I shall die a virtuous man.
Moot,
Shall be the adjective
Best describing my death,
For I may die
In the midst of prayer
As bones become brittle
And muscles malfunction.
However,
I may suffer greatly
Like my brethren
The Falun Gong.
I may be force-fed and poisoned
Into substitution of spirit
For supplements
Of cyanide secularism.
The path is not yet clear.

As I retreat from the fog
And sift through a white screen
Separating lifetimes,
Questions arise
Regarding this regression
To the past.
I traded meditation for medication,
Replaced the atmosphere with a room,
Bartered my soul for fixes
In bottles and cans.
Diverging deeply from deities,
All the while wondering
If I was happier than.

New age soars through America
Where I dwell now.
I can no longer afford
To simply meditate
Or live without resources.
Too many days pass
During this familiar feeling of financial failure,
Where I wonder why I wander
These woods of weakening wealth and worth.
Though I welcome my words
And the ways in which they are written,
They often times fall upon blind eyes.
To this day,
I try to answer
The queries
Posed by the initial stages
Of the current lifetime,
Lubricated with lipstick and eyeliner.
Was I better off with nothing?
No hopes for the future?
No personal aspirations?
No goals to set?
No dreams to flesh out?
No family to establish?
No choices to make?
No decisions to induce days of anxiety?
No wealth to hoard or share?
No ideas to write down?
No ears with which they can be learned?

On too many days,
This life seems similar to the last,
With exceptions to changes in fashion,
Technology
Music
Habits
Vices,
And values.
The robe remains,
Cloaking an instrument
Oxidized beyond belief
And empty as the chambers
Where hope and progression
Used to lie.
On many I a die,
I wonder,
How similar will the next rebirth be?

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