AFTER READING DESCARTES

 
Is that Buster Keaton
or could it be a rhinoceros?
And am I breathing heavily
or are these really convolutions?
It feels like I’m riding in from the north
but I could just as easily
be crawling up from the south.
So what am I?
Shaped by centuries
or merely the shreds of a discarded
cardboard box?

Do I sip coffee
and look out on a violent world?
Or soar and dip like a gull?
And I’m in my parlor aren’t I?
So why do I hurt like
I’m sore and bleeding in some alleyway?
My eyes are brown surely.
And yet some are green.
Are those stars in the sky
or are they more like scars?
I live in a world
where there are no good answers.
Not even the questions
are up to the job.