(stuff)

We spend our lives
talking about the
stuff, trying to clean
the stuff,
organize the stuff,
get the the stuff
and then get rid of
the stuff.
Hard to tell what
will become stuff,
except almost all of
it does, even
books become stuff,
music, poems.
Something about
the other stuff
encroaching, so
we don’t have
mind enough left
to pay attention.
It is neglect, I think
that lack of
consciousness
revealed in a layer
of dust,
that turns it into stuff.

Too much stuff
to think about,
to decide what to
do with, where
to put.
One day we want
it, but the wanting
doesn’t last.
Perhaps it shouldn’t
or needn’t.
Perhaps our refusal
to live just in the
moment, makes
us hoard, hold
on to stuff
because that is
all we can hold
on to.

Cards I buy
become too special
to use. I save
them – for what? For someone to find
when I die.
How much pleasure
will that bring?

I feel driven by
stuff. A running
pile behind the
bedroom door
of things to go.

Once I whittled
my whole life
away, down to
one small storage
space.
But it didn’t
work, it all came
back again.
It seems I throw
away more than
I acquire.
But the stuff
seems to breed
in the night.

I’ve seen the room
where Junipero Sera
lived, a hard cot,
small table and chair.
It was a room
where one could
breathe,
one I have held
in my head
for years.
But outside my head
is another story.
Clutter and chaos,
chaos and clutter.
What causes
this disease,
the disease of
the century.
Stuff.

We cram it into
the Earth when
we get tired of
it. Grow grass
on top trying
to forget.
One day she will
turn on us, start sprouting
stuff, we will
have to survive
on it then.
Gnawing plastic,
chewing rubber.
Shitting stuff.

4/19/99