fresh fire

the fresh fire
white hot to the core
dances within the entity
that is my soul
the I
that I am
warming the coldness of my temporal
existence, concerned
with utilities
back payments
and delinquent accounts

death is never so near
as the risks that I take

the fire
that transforms
the fire
that lives
the fire that cleanses

one slip away
one breath away
one trigger away
the cremation fire
is my funeral pyre
it longs for the substance of my hope
I retain my optimism
despite my impending demise

buried or burned
the question that
divides a generation
my father feared
his children might burn him
he made my mother promise
it would never be
and I the son
fear the ground

the fire
that transforms
the fire
that lives
the fire that cleanses

now he rest in the ground
quietly, sealed, dressed
without shoes
pickled and hardened
as a mounument to a life
long passed
real estate sacrificed to
mounuments of those
long dead, should not
the homeless and helpless
pitch tents in grave yards
all across America
out of respect for the living

daily I die to the flesh
each day into blackness
each night into light
my life, my heart
is reborn in spirit
cleansed in fire
a ghost, a spirit
a vapor, a glance
an instance
of being

the fire that kills
the fire that burns
the fire that consumes
the fire
that is