So you ask for advice from us sages?
As we journal on yellowing pages.
A stitch can save nine
(if you make it in time)
but days turned to weeks turned to ages.
In a malström and swiftly descending
towards anguish and torture unending,
I finally wrote
these words on this note
that I put into this bottle I’m sending.
In the woods there’s a tarn with no bottom.
In the shivering last days of autumn,
I sink through the rot
like an untangled knot,
or a pillar of salt outside Sodom.
As I slouch toward Betlehem crowning
and Johst reaches for his old Browning,
Plato’s chained in his cave,
Juliet’s in her grave,
and Ahab and Queequeg are drowning.
Once the coffin lid’s free from my clawing
and the rodents are done with their gnawing,
and AMOC has collapsed,
I will lie there relaxed
in the soil that is cold beyond thawing.