Smelling Smoke

Lost,
somewhere among the
crashing and burning
of
the forest,

Far off from my
apartment
on Meadows
but you can
smell
the smoke
over the flowers
and
the clumps of
long-stemmed grass.

Far gone,
lost to dreams and paintings,
Summer burning away everything,
Apollo too close to sage,
an attempt to naturally
pull more carbon into the world,
cycle it back to the roots,
to reestablish lost updrafts of life,
flitting,
billowing clouds of ash and spark
into heaven,
tickling the feet of God.

I
I smell it,
feel the once strong roots
tickling my nostrils,
the bugs,
the clay,
the stems,
what could have been a haven once,
now reduced to ash,
like a red wine sauce over steak,
I pay through the nose for this too.

Unwittingly at first, I eat
Unwillingly then, I breathe,
being forced to notice that I’m
sitting here,
an artist, trying to fight
some
kind
of
Good
Fight,

and the world simply continues to burn away,
as my computer hums its flourescent cancer into my iris.