lights.

he saw the lights of heaven, spacious,
inciting erosion of flesh, sporadic blemishes
and misgivings of the mind;
glimpsed them while
sinking beneath a sea,
a wide, trembling beast with
antagonizing, angry gusts & waves
tsunami, heights
beyond imagination,
envisioned as limbs flailed
wild and free, branches, limber and
snapping of a willow,
newly born & exposed
to the brutal, ferocious winds of
autumn;
lungs, blackened and tainted
with the tar & nicotine of unfiltered cigarettes,
& sweet cherry cigars beneath
the moon in the spring garden
with a cup of steaming tea
and an absorbing novel
of mystery, death, suspense, salvation.

passed out of consciousness,
thrust
without mercy in the froth and fliver
of the rough, salt-fused water,
seaweed and barnacle beneath the surface,
coral and violet light
illuminated by the brilliant deceptive moon,
lingering above, 
reminding him of ages
beneath the very same circle
with a woman, silken and rose,
dancing & twirling,
swirling,
whirlpools in the catastrophic
spinning of nature.

he saw the lights of heaven
lids clasped tightly, protecting
sight, shielding optics,
mouth open in awe,
accepting pints of gurgling,
choking water,
breathing the moisture,
becoming the sea,
becoming himself a fossil,
a vessel of age
an archaeological discovery of ages
when the waters have shifted,
the seas have drained,
the skies have grown hot,
the atmosphere heavy, thick
with the smog and waste of the
industrial age, withering and expanding,
threading sunlight and rays of
toxic radioactivity.

he saw the lights of heaven,
as heavily guarded,
conditioned men and women
in suits and protection,
unearthed his white, bleached bones,
and examined them with a feigned interest,
before tossing his remnants back
into the sand of the ocean bottom,
ignorant
of what comes before,
what comes after.

he saw the lights,
saw the flowering of nebulas,
saw the gathering of shivering,
feathered
angels.
& fled the earth.