in the clouds that careen
over the changing frame that is a car window 
     {the set-up:                         a voluminous rig,
                            darting,
                            like Ali,   
                   two lanes sinister,
                                              then dextrously in a blink }

suddenly swerved into an idea
that this is how idiots kill,
upending life
like candles at a birthday party
and rewriting a bedrock gnome,
that the fit fight on

   [but don’t think this is about me almost dying
in a car accident]

–by then, self assured
that life lives on {and the immediate threat
having been passed}           [oh why
am I compelled to set my imperfect thoughts bare
in the fragile concept of words?] my worst nature
got the best of me,
and I set forth the following:

<<let us posit that tools, equitable,
readily available to all,
are fair in Darwin’s game–
that the fighter’s finesse is honed
to his (and my)
own end

so then, am I to conclude
that all is fair
in war and night clubs?
that I die deservedly so
because I would rather flee than flay
my foolish foe, who does not find himself in me?
that the augmented parochial myopia deserves
to win simply because of its own augmentedness?>>

this outcome stands unbearable
(and tautologically tortured)

before my mind
and I nearly sink in despair

then my flotsam self clings
to a corollary concept:

<<to all before, stet,
and from there springs
indominable life and joy,
for we have said 
that life will out,
moreover our tools are intangential
our ideas impact beyond ourselves
(and ideas are bulletproof, too),
and life, recognizing life, will rejoin before it
tears itself assunder,
because the love of life
is life itself,
and every object is stoppable 
in the face of unmovable life

so then I am to conclude
that we can disagree, even disagreeably,
and the love of life will hold us together!
that nature begat nurture
and community is a concept that polishes
and makes oneself a mirror for his fellow man!
that the device of the individual sows its own defeat
while the apparatus of the communal builds itself up!>>

–by then, self assured
that life lives on {and the immediate threat
having been passed}

my mind moves me
onward
and I dance among the clouds