On Despairing in a Bookstore

"Oh dark dark dark. They all go into the dark...." -T.S. Eliot, from "East Coker"

"We fall nine floors down, nine rings
of death.
And further still, but not still.
Even lower, even lower.
Further down and further out,
Into the burning dark
Where we shatter against its
Rocks and Ridges, rough and ragged,
Burning and hollow, stuffed with straw
and dirt.
It burns our eyes, ears, and throats.

"The dirt dries us out and burns.
The straw, hay and stubble, kindling
for the burning dark.
Our fragments fall, with no light left
to refract,
Like obsidian tears; they disappear
Into the dark, burning dark,
Hollow dark, stuffed dark.

"We walk still, still-born, burnt and dirty.
Dirt, straw, stubble, burning.
It fills us up, fills our cup.
Sweet like honey from the hives
of the house of the dead.
Toxic syrup, sweetest poison.
Who dieth thus dies hell.
I mean well! I mean well! Oh please,
let us die well!

"Lightning's crackle cracks the
iron sky and sea
of the burning dark.
From east to west it cries;
It cries, it cries, it weeps.
Tears of water, clear and cold,
Freezing cold, burning cold.
Its ice fills the dark; a burning winter
rattles our bones.

"We break apart, a house of cards
shuffled back into the deck.
Proper places are the pieces that
are missing in our heads,
In our souls, in our bones, as
they rattles on the ground,
In the dark, burning dark, the
only sound."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009