precarious nothings by Vincent Cellucci

I made a pilgrimage
to the fountain of nothing
wanted to find the source
of all pointlessness
unsurprisingly
there was no alter of offerings
nor stone engraving
indicating the spring
silent even hidden in grey
foliage or clouds unclear
to me now even before it still unsure
my response
whether to leap in
splay out my everything
precious crumbled in a paper sack
or possibly to cork it
but my martyr drive
has never been a particularly
strong one always an acorn
on concrete next to the vivid
spectrum of my hedonism
which I admit may be shrinking
whether from a slight change
of perspective connected to perseverance
or just the nature of the pendulum
even at this precipice
of the sublime void even eating a popsicle
favored or flavored by existentialists
there's certainly no spot
for a hammock and my bladder
is full
of sierra nevada
I open a book
ferlinghetti
and I dance swaying like a drunk
on the subway
refusing to touch the handrails
and consume
the pages madly flipping
to the next to the next
vaulting from word to word
an acupuncture
of mind and body
as if the book
unlike this
seemingly innocuous
wellspring will never end
Vincent A. Cellucci wrote Absence Like Sun (Lavender Ink, 2019) andAn Easy Place / To Die (CityLit Press, 2011). He edited Fuck Poemsan exceptional anthology (Lavender Ink, 2012). He also has two collaborative titles: come back river (Finishing Line Press, 2014) and _a ship on the line (Unlikely Books, 2014), which was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Vincent performed Diamonds in Dystopia, an interactive poetry web app at SXSW in 2017, and the poem was anthologized in Best American Experimental Writing 2018. He works at the TU Delft Library. Twitter @theexceptionali