In This Time

in all this time
     I've not written one divine line,
     I've sown not one bountiful field,

I will leave for my child
     a vast unreadable work,
     a collection of journals for the fire,

I am slowly starving to death
     most of what I eat is digitally prescribed

in all this time
     I've built up the cancer particles that will kill me
     I've worked in boxes called offices on rows called floors

I will leave for my child
     Crippling debt and a decayed philosophy
     old bones of the oldest man alive

I am slowly starved to death
     by the long lines of the loudest bank

In all this time
     our trees have grown and been cut down
     I have grown and been cut down

I will leave our children
     the future of the human race
     to do with as they please

I am slowly starving to death
     of my own and rightful accord

I am slowly becoming death
     which I will embody for all but an instant

I am become death
     of the poem and the world

I am death
     everlasting in nothingness

I death
     am a phantom in a dream that never was

I
     is meaningless in the void