World Building

Better to start from nothing
Than diminished parallels.
Don’t be Michelangelo.

Don’t try to carve out some world
Hidden in the world you know.
Impress us. Invent from scratch.

Confine yourself in some cell
Of a room or a closet
And imagine de novo.

Start from a hole in the world
Of memory, a sinkhole
Into which random things fall

And vanish, whether or not
They accumulate beyond
Knowledge, as in a black hole,

Or simply evaporate
Without residue or trace,
Like active self-awareness

Fallen in the well of death.
As the hole grows, your world grows,
Your real world of emptiness.