Having a Kafka Moment

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.
~ John Milton

i’ve been growing old slower
with all this beauty around me
my peers lately, have been chatting
about the power of gratitude

every revolution evaporates
so why bother, bureaucracy
prevails, politicians are corrupt

i’ve been growing old slower
since i started not doing politics
not being political, learning
to be productive in the spheres

that aren’t touched by the marketplace
i’ve learned not to lie, by staying silent
i no longer read advertisements

i no longer occupy my time with wanting things
i’ve been growing old slower
with a quiet beginning of understanding
the first wish to die has risen in me

like a bud that will flower
a medication from my own substance
i have the true feeling of myself

only when i give up happiness and unhappiness
there, the world will present itself
to you with its unmasking
like a child that only wants to play

i’ve been growing old more slowly
in theory where I abandon the second world
the idea that suffering is necessary

that pain is a natural argument of time
i’d rather read a book
that serves as an ax for
the frozen sea within me

and associate myself with human beings
that not only lure me into a self-observation
but allow me to laugh at myself better

or realize how pathetically scant
my self-knowledge is compared to say
the awareness that I am growing older
and care less for my youthful failures

by consequence of a natural decline in memory
it’s there, that evil is whatever distracts
me from whatever I consider my calling

at the time, did I mention that
i’ve been growing old more slowly
since I’ve surrounded myself with kind women?
it’s true, women are precisely

my favorite religion, i could hide
in their dogma for any number of years
feeling totally young in their emotions

find many hiding places listening
smiling to their relationship-antagonists.