The Pharmakon, For Max Blagg


                                        You are well fitted into the world, 
                                        you have earned your place, 
                                        and know how to conduct yourself with grace, 
                                        and for that I feel the gods will give you favor.
                                                                             Love, Max

Jung spent his middle years
like Dante exploring
                                the underworld
                                to answer as closely 
                                as imagination
                                would allow 
the "decisive question"
are we related 
or not 
to something 
infinite 

If ever there were an initiation
to such a world 
it's this one I enter 
                                 infused with chemicals 
                                 that are both cure and poison 
                                 pharmakon does both to me 
                                 at the same time 
a rabbit hole
I fall through 
a world where the borders 
of worlds dissolve

                                      but curiously not as expected
                                      filled with the fear of death 
                                      a walk through the valley 
                                      of the shadow 

                                                           I am David
                                                           without sling or kingdom
                                                           or certainty I might
                                                           think my way 
                                                           out of this condition

but find myself entangled in 
invisible roots of what 
is unknowable 
                           that combine 
                           to form structures more quickly
                           than I can hold on to them
                           am forced to let go 

                           stare for the first time  
                           into absolute
                           absence 

everything 
that held the world together
swallowed by 
that faceless face 

abandonment 

                         until it seems
                         I have no choice but to embrace it
                         decipher its message

nothing else to do on the way 
to a destination which 
has always been the center
of a circle squared 

suddenly realize
just how important it is
I fall in love 
with whatever  
I find there