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Staring at the Abyss
"Nihilism is best left to professionals."
--Iggy Pop
Concrete abstractions peer down at me
as erect lamp posts secretly stand guard
over that living void which overflows
with currents of flesh and wire:
broken down confusion,
antibiotics in steel and glass.
An angel with a street-dirty face
in a plaid shirt and ripped jeans
asks for some change and I hand
him a dollar and think of change:
Bourgeois guilt
Buddha compassion
I state at the abyss of the restless city
and hope others see what is staring back.
This frigid urban nihilism should be left
to dead German philosophers and loneliness.