[It fails to pass.]
I close my eyes
and it fails to pass.
I hoist stone
To move the world forward.
My mind is propelled
Through parallel streams of thought,
actions, stressors.
Still it fails to pass.
I’m sagging.
Leaden weights dangle from my ears.
Sweater of briarcloth, shoes too small for swollen feet.
The carriage that carries me and my brethren
careens wildly, out of control.
And our rooms are too hot.
The puddles of sweat consume us.
We cannot drink it
to curb this heat.
And all the while, with
this horror show, this train
easily sidestepped;
it fails to pass.
Fever/Lever
Fever,
Callous in my eye.
Lever-bounce my snakeskin,
up and through the rafters.
Levers,
Choices made in limbo.
The other side rides high and mighty,
us lovers nap in canyons.
Grief
There are vessels for the grieving.
“Grace” gets etched in your back.
Eyes are murky, hurt and unclear.
Samples of happiness float on the wind.
Smallness annihilated in
the scope of puzzlement.
Mitigated heresy, there’s nothing to judge.
Does form beget function?
Do humans languish?
If this was all one could say,
References to pain and silver wrap around to entrap.
Untitled A
Searching eastward to the heights of the dome,
My hair is chilled to the root.
Felt hat is a dream of cold past.
Fish are piled to the roof.
Love infects men like scurvy,
a sour taste to pull loose.
Its timbre is the trumpet of anarchy
and eyes get left for the crows.
A sailor died in the crow’s nest,
while his boat was in port.
Rich as heaven with noone to go home to.
He tasted sacramental death.
Brian Gagné