JUST GRATITUDE

as failures and spoils

come at you like

an ugly magnificent snake

swallowing its tail
as stars explode

as children are born and unborn

as traffic, as a double fold

of milieu and grist

for coffee shop days

the myth of your youth

then and now

for the pummeling of gravity

and late pregnancy of red moons

for the good songs

the annihilation of fame for the writers

of the bad songs

for blood and for graves

prayers like ladders

to an acclimating God

or a catering devil

for men who hold depth

women who are sincere

just women period

and for all the blank domino days

the tick-tock days, the red-in-the-face days

and the greasy nights

the diner nights

the forging nights of exquisite pain

just gratitude and let the rest

sort itself right off the universal 

precipice