Oh modern slave! Whoever holds the leash
Your powers ache to lengthen so passionately;
By looks we’ve emerged from our hushed crèche,
To a world your gods bore cacophonously.
Where justice is wrought by the toss of a dime,
And new law’s gluttony hides the old’s entrails;
The balance now serves to punish ‘fore crime,
And Liberty’s strength cannot wield the scale.
Try it! Flatten the summit and fix to it the star
Which guides those that part with this task of toil;
Try on the bejeweled drapery of He, from afar,
Who endeavored to fashion you: soul from soil.
Too bewitched by that drink which dims the pain,
To smell the retch of the sore you have opened again.

What shadows eclipse my careful judgment?
With what violence does the Earth resist my weight?
Stand, must I, despite the rebellious
nature of the tremor underneath my gait

Oh to borrow Atlas' strength for my burden
For Hercules to sharpen and connect the twine
Powering my muscle to match the uncertain
force and ferocity and finish of time

Oh in banishment from the garden we forever fall
And collapse into chasms beneath the soil
Excavated too resignedly by the hands
of men unwilling to share our toil

But mine is the young spirit daily forged
With Death's lasting measure tarnished and torn!
My yoke and the blood loosed beneath it
Invigorate my being; reborn, Reborn!

the onyx residence above me matches what’s below
the tumult seems synchronous
thrusting this realm from end to end
My wooden steed is in disrepair
and war-weary in defeat
seeking quieter refuge amongst the forsaken
life drips from me and erupts about me
oh how I grasp for the sanctuary of it
but the bodies only burgeon and
grow in formidable posture
Presiding above my eyes
They sway and dance and swallow me whole

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
  And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
  At rest in the hollows that rustle between.

Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
  Ah, weary, wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
  Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

the croons and cries
tempt me again
under a blackening sky
i tread not lightly but thoroughly
at once sanctifying this raw Earth
and destroying it
i encroach in this place
my soul knows it but my eyes do not
the shredding of those teeth
my pace encourages while my being is wrought
not in terror but loyalty

i haven't found you
yet i am close

Beside your window
Beside the water
Beneath those dark stars
Beneath the martyrs

I think of purpose
I think of power
In poignant remorse
Piquantly sour

In your yard it seems to rise
The ephemeral cadence of surprise
When he appears with baffled eyes
The life before him another prize

Atop the glowing grass you lay
Under the melody of the play
Of a loose guitar and drummer’s way
With the tunes and tones of a summer’s day

Yet I am here
Yet I am away
A piece of you
Unwelcome, afraid

Now apart
Now a fiend
My once sweet life
Under siege

The lights that glimmer and dance for you
They warm the past and present too
Nothing’s decrepit, nothing askew
And the only color unplayed is blue

Crystal collides and inhibitions calm
In glee and grandeur you carry on
What lasts awhile, but not too long
Is preserved in yet another song

Dare I advance
Dare I say,
“May I join you,
May I stay?”

But I have dared enough today
Dared to leave and dared to return
I have dared my whole life away
Far too fractured to finally learn

Must you, God, cast me aside?
I have listened, I have tried!
Anguish forced me from this place
Return me, Father, in somber grace!

What good are these ears if I cannot hear you!
What save this mouth from uselessness?
My flesh and fingers seek to be near you
As I reach in this black night for blessedness!

Despite my quite audacious plea
Lakeside, I now need memory
To fool my mind and body as one
Into knowing I am still your son

Yet here I left you so here I must be
Only just beside your pictures of me
Only just beside our family name
Only just beside my battered grave.