Fred Aiken Writing

small, pent up olong grains marked with years of wear,

subjected to the strain of compounds wrought in abject solution and constant desolation,

hoping to one day see light,

there is light,

no, where is light,

torn asunder from its shell, its habitat, the only place that little grain felt safe, complete,

and not thrown out from the little corner of this universe it calls home,

where it can wash, rinse, repeat,

under an endless horizon

while bashing its head against the wall

and hoping for a good cup of tea

the worst question I was ever taught

happened to be the quest for why,

while sitting on a rock

going a few hundred, maybe even a thousand,

miles per hour in a void that

constantly expands and moves in an unknowable direction,

pondering the great mystery of why,

while an effervescent string of scenarios

play out without my knowledge or approval,

not that it needed it, nor I it,

yet here I am, occupying a space like any other 

carbon meat sack generalizing the world 

so I can understand everything about some vacuum

or atomic structure composed out of a billion

strains of code randomized into a composition

meant for great things, 

so I hear