In the Spirit of Sunflower Sutra

 The Ginsberg collection we read for class is tied together by a classic beat feeling of melancholy smallness, or so it seems to me. There is a sense of one's own insignificance in the massiveness of existence, which I think is communicated best in my favorite of his poems, Sunflower Sutra. I didn't set out to write a version or tribute or any such thing in regards to his work, but I wrote a poem in the spirit that Sunflower Sutra imparts on me.

                                                      small human in a big world
                                                                  in two parts

1.
the sunset looks painted on
and poorly at that, in washed out acrylics by some hound-eyed amateur who wears berets and the languid disinterest of one who weeps in secret

like the sky was gonna make sunny side eggs but broke the yolk and gave up,
decided to let the evening burn in the pan
                                                                   and try again tomorrow

as if the horizon took lessons in dodging responsibility from congress and its gonna hand the problem over to the incumbent night before retiring to a mansion in milwaukee to drink expensive wine and wonder when the hunting emptiness echoed it's passion

2.
i've been leaving pieces of myself behind in stranger's smiles, parking lot forget-me-nots, billows of smoke that outline the wind for a wholly fractured, whole and holy moment the way a poem silhouettes your self.

i've been thinking about time,
                                                how it folds,
                                                                     the paper of it.

i've been thinking about the tide-pool trauma that seems as inherent in us as if we inherited the sea.

i've been thinking about time,
                                                how i want to trade it in for stories,
                                                how the world wants me to trade it in for money.

i've been wondering if the tide pools tell stories, or the stories tell
                                          tide pools, or if the ocean still wants us back after all these millions of years.

i've been thinking about passion, and rationality, and rationing compassion.

i've been wondering about human connection, and if it exists, and if it learned to be so frail and unbreakable from sunlight, and if the
                             sun might decide its tired of these freeloading assholes, and if love can be a decision, and if it can maybe we're the mistake the moon made just so she would know better.