Black Maps

Not the attendance of stones,
nor the applauding wind,
shall let you know
you have arrived,
nor the sea that celebrates
only departures,
nor the mountains,
nor the dying cities.
Nothing will tell you
where you are.

Each moment is a place
you’ve never been.

You can walk
believing you cast
a light around you.
But how will you know?

The present is always dark.
Its maps are black,
rising from nothing,
describing,
in their slow ascent
into themselves,
their own voyage,
its emptiness,
the bleak temperate
necessity of its completion.

As they rise into being
they are like breath.

And if they are studied at all
it is only to find,
too late, what you thought
were concerns of yours
do not exist.

Your house is not marked
on any of them,
nor are your friends,
waiting for you to appear,
nor are your enemies,
listing your faults.

Only you are there,
saying hello
to what you will be,
and the black grass
is holding up the black stars.

~Mark Strand

Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005)

going out
the sweet slide of the luger
toward your temple,
a flight of birds winging
northward,
the clicking sound of the
safety catch being
released,
the eclipse of the
sun,
the sound of something being
shut
hard,
pal.

~Charles Bukowski