Waves of flame course through my veins,
      heralding a coming storm,
      challenging me to perform
restraint to tame my lustful ways.

Oh, that the burn'd give way to thunder
      and the deluge pouring down,
      filling us from Cup to Crown
with baited breath and ache and wonder.

Every nerve cries out, awake -
      the roaring blaze that dwarfs us both,
      tempting me to break my oaths
and Know the ire that liberates -

Lick away the blood and beauty,
      sizzle up my salty tears...
      tell me what I'm doing here,
lie me down for Death and Duty.

Those who Know not fear to see the edges,
and cushion themselves for convenience.
They cannot conceive of the use of a blade,
and interpret the knife for malfeasance.

And ignorance blinds, but never reminds them
that wisdom is not without season.

Those who Will not see the edge they must walk,
and shirk of the path they observe;
they lapse into apathy, wasting the spark
that ignites the gunpowder of verve.

And ignoring the drive that igniteth their lives
is a sign that they don't have the nerve.

Those who Dare not see the edges on everything,
and shrink back for fear of the cutting.
And they, ****** by Nin to their cowardice, fleeting
little safeties, abstain from their budding.

But woe is their hallmark, and after the impulse
their tears are the heart of the flooding.

Those who are Silent are edgy and riveting,
obstinate enigmas unyielding.
Their empty responses negate any prompting,
impenetrable in their shielding.

*And Death, their reward at the end of the sword
is the triumph they earn without kneeling.

Whisk, lily limbs, into graciousness, stately -
and hate me for being so fallible, fallible,
fallible - like such a damnable human.
Dare not lay your hands upon me.

So well disjointed, appointed a label,
told fables and psalms like a whimsical, whimsical,
whimsical lie, exorbitant narratives
fraught with the stench of decay.

And so, disappointed, anointed with thorns,
as their horns, and their false tongues so difficult, difficult,
difficult, that we can't help but wonder
just why we live this way,

as your lily limbs spin into spacious transgression.
Confessions of laudable symmetry, symmetry,
symmetry, broken: you choked on your words
as they caught on your breath, and you had nothing left to say.

Landscape silhouettes
pirouetted off
pockmark lights in the dark;
the city shivers
in its myths and windy whispers,

Just a subtle rumble 'neath his humble feet,
heart aflutter, stuttering
palpitation structure sputtering; the lightless rain
glanced across the window brackets
of the moving train.

Silence yawned across his vapid eyes
like labored lullaby sans interlacing rhyme device -
Home, the beckoning, fulfillment's underlying premise
calling off at every stop
'til seats bowed under weight of emptiness.

Friendless in the long stretch
between conductor's breath,
fresh with mints and benevolence,
punching tickets
with a lonely sickness...

Ah, fitful sleep awaits us
past the sliding doors
and walk to familiar shores,
horizons bleak,
and nothing more.

Locomotive groans
pervade the embers of the gloam
and glitter bright,
against the clutching fingers
of this woeful night.