Goya Knew

I have discarded Saturn’s slave bracelet,
freed myself from visible obsession,
become a tachyon truant, running
on computers’ oscillating crystals,
randomly set foreign wall clocks,
strangers’ concept of the continuum, stretching
meals around stomach pain,
appointments around celestial feng shui,
sleep around internal lactic acid levels, rising
with morning star light, to face
life on intersecting time lines, rarely
recognizing catabolism, oblivious
while lungs loose elasticity,
brain cells erode in the time stream,
knee joints weather in a synovial tide, turning
freedom into rheumatoid incarceration,
knowledge into reminisce
breath into shallow pools, reflecting
Saturn, prophet of apoptosis,
eating his children.

–Robert E. Dahlman