One cries from a foxhole
A tear splashes an urn
Some dance laced in bootstraps
Many diminished returns
Two shuffle tarots
“All in!” Shouts a third
Homesteads brandish wind chimes
Infant dreams lay deferred
A quiet malarkey
As hunger pangs ring
Piled high, bullion
Cages hearts and clips wings

The Cannibal’s dream and the inverse conclusion
Twist of the seam, sunken scattered illusion

Shouts of the spy fastened tight to the pylon
Sacrifice sweating; bygones can’t just be bygones
Mustard gas moans, whip lashed in the fire
Cunning glass masters burned alive at the pyre
Miscarriage minister delivers the sponge-bath
Alive at the eve of divination, the wrath
Blasphemous cries vindicate putrid powder
Sweet crystal cradling, swaddling sheets on the shrouder

Arcane sessions in the cavern deep
Turbulently righteous ideas to reap
Divine purification at an alchemy flame
A zenith of nostrums, bad medicine, blame
Strip off the layers and chant benediction
A hand, from the mind, reaching out for conviction
Sharp swords of lead, heavy, shifting to gold
Sentient beings search for truth to behold

Excavate, deviate, a stranger to demonstrate
Colloquial séance with panic to elevate
Head leads body, a path of insurrection
The soul and the mind at war for correction
The crotches of branches, slits of the eyes
A crevasse of lonesome; wedged in, we writhe
Anticipating the sting that comes with the change
Of transforming the cave into a mountain range

leave me
let the quiet come here
allow my porous dreams a chance
to be cored no more
to be filled with sponge-bath waters

or come to me
with eyes ripened for a funeral
foam on your cheeks from jaunty phantoms
who lean down with a wayward kiss
from eternities bound to a melancholy

oblivion creeping in our stairwell
I crawl down the causeway a stranger
with a plea leashed to my wrist
a bargain on my mind

love is a harsh word
and I dare not speak it here
for fear of cataclysm
or lack thereof

A strange and potent rapture
Held their eyes upon the ice
As the dancers pranced on razor blades
Each mastered movement seemed so trite

They whirled and leapt without misstep
Beneath a guise of fearlessness
For they knew they scrutinizing board
Could acclaim or else condemn

The crowd was hung on tenterhooks
A crescendo rose amongst the horns
The ovation moment soon at hand
Save just the ****** unperformed

Raving sounds crashed from the pit
As he tossed her into pirouette
A faltered glance, a clumsy catch
They toppled down as good as dead

Within the aches of the times between dreams  
Hobbling on
With a dour countenance
Hanging in the prevailing north wind
Someone old yet  hardly wise
Whistles an eerie hymn
In reply to native birdsongs
Cardinals and sparrows
An occasional red-tailed hawk scream
The lively menagerie joins
Into a taunting laughter

Within the cold threat of a life uncertain
Bounding on
With the sun running in
And sliding down the bedroom wall
A young man in his young armor
Walks out shining toward the day
To find clouds approaching
And beneath a thin mist
He walks his trenchant walk
Metal splashes through viscous puddled earth
And rust grows in the creases

Within the rain hurdling down
Scampering on
With a dream thundering from gray skies
Into a drab living room
A child loses himself in himself
To find a more colorful world
Where the booms are but drums
And drops of rain are chipper visitors
When the lights go out and darkness comes
He marvels at the waltzing candlelight
And nothing can touch him

Stones that have not yet fallen from their high place

The personification of crumpled paper
Bounding in and out of relevance
Back and forth from the wastebasket
To the pen