Samsara – Jason O’Toole

Let the children have cupcakes
And furniture to jump on
Ten more minutes before bedtime

You know what’s coming
Let them have some joy before

For all we know
Five or six years before tonight
Their souls were leaving broken bodies
In a Mexico City traffic accident
Awaiting divine judgement in a Serbian nursing home
Or floating above their wasted carcass
Remorseful at having reached the end
On a bare mattress in some Berlin squat

If we are all still here
In this final age of iron
None of us have ascended
We might just be the dumbest of the dumb
If that’s the way it works

Give them an extra brownie
And a hug
You’ll need it more than them

Jason O’Toole is the author of Spear of Stars (The Red Salon, 2018) and the forthcoming Soulless Heavens. He has been featured in An Anthology of Poems from The Red Salon (2018) and We’ve Seen the Same Horizon (2019). His writing has appeared in Heathen Harvest Periodical, Nixes Mate Review, Tigershark, The Asylum, and other publications. He was the vocalist for the NY Hardcore Punk band, Life’s Blood. He performed as the featured poet for the National Poetry Month event at Lovecraft Arts & Sciences accompanied by musician Alec K. Redfearn.