THE TRANCE COMES SUDDENLY

The trance comes suddenly...
the Nile is a muddy highway,
skiff strewn ribbon of river
ox-bow twisting, ebbing,
surging between pyramids
and fertile valleys of the mind.
Light unbearable, piercing, relentless,
sears the hypothalamus,
mutating cells that control memory.

Give it up!
The perfect solution to loneliness,
that dehydrated angst that sits leaden,
perched like a black crow, silent,
watching, frozen in loss
at the exact apex of the spine,
simply isn’t coming.

Ramses may have believed,
but I doubt it seriously,
that the next life, the revival,
the escape from gauze and plaster,
would bring the denouement.
Does the undertaker believe
what he does is art...
or craft, I wonder?