Clay

Today as I walked to class,
molested only by the fingers of the clock,
I heard a sentimental song, and
I wondered
at the futility of human emotion
and the
as of yet unfathomed
amount
of pain and everything else
that surrounds us,
imposes itself like a rude guest
and makes away in the night
with our jewels, heirlooms, false teeth, false smile
and leaves us bare,
our age exposed once more;
why, I wondered, what possible reason could we invent
for recieving the same guest again?
All human emotion,
all poetry,
all song,
all hapiness and sadness and every human consciousness,
--which requires constant thought,
demands opinions and reflections to no end
regardless of our inveitable eventual fatigue--
seemed perverse, awkward, irritating,
offensive.

I had walked perhaps ten yards
when the last notes
of the horribly sentimental song
fell
on my ears
so heavily as to sink to my feet
like sand to the floor of the sea,
routing me there,
regardless of my sudden fatigue.

A bell rang.
I was late
an ironic ten yards from my destination,
but my thoughts didn't pause to lament this,
being busy, as it were,
caressing
the delicate tender thing
the words and sounds created from
--imposed upon!--
the soft clay of my mind.

Above the river of my thoughts
I watch my hypocrisy,
proud, conviction-riddled contradictions,
confusion,
emotions,
triggered by events with which they do not correlate,
and enjoy the privelege and right
of youth,
which is to possess
a mind of clay.