The Trance of Habit

Japanese has this word, kaizen, that tricks you
the way the air holds water. You wait, it hangs,
the storm clouds accelerate or dissipate but
don't propigate a drop.

My friends fall into patterns, superstitions
no different than shrinking from black cats or
wiping your inner screen of them, circling you,
mewling before you.

Both confuse move with improve - the way
a derrick rigs, a piston fires, up and down.
Up and down. Up and down.

When was Part 2 ever better than the first time?

You are mine. We are one, I will direct
the rest to you.

Perhaps you should be us, cursed universal;
thus, we monkey through forests by the same
worn steps that were, once, chosen.

This is neither philosophy or poem but hope
for the fall of the Rome you have fed yourself.

Let it burn, mythed bird, and rise anew.