III (UPON NOTHING)

"I have founded my affair
upon nothing."
My affair,
my ball,
my party,
my dance.
This universe without meaning
or purpose
is an abyss,
a bottomless chasm,
precisely NOTHING.
I create my fleeting meanings
without a care for any future.
I leap into the abyss
eyes wide open.
I leap into this mad and boisterous dance:
skipping,
swirling,
pirouetting,
as I fall
without fear.

But my partners are few.
Most curl up in balls
beneath the blanket of their belief,
and hide their heads under pillows of ideology,
convincing themselves
that they aren't falling,
that they lie on a firm foundation:
god or science,
Marx or identity,
even anarchy,
so many phantom mental floors.
But in this abyss every floor
is a prison floor.

And where there is no bottom
freefall is another name
for flying,
and we who dance and fly
are intoxicated with it all.
We cannot help but laugh,
and if with the laughter
tears should fall,
aren't they the sweetest,
most intoxicating nectar?
We are such marvelous beings,
unique and ever-changing
dancers in the abyss...
We shimmer...
elusive and beautiful...