wear the badge, suitor, bristling poet,
chloroform content on a surge of the old heroism,
but you could do nothing to save her back in the then
your benevolent shock impotent in hindsight
and what ungovernable intent holds sway at this time?

can the intellectual blast paint a way for a homecoming
where accused dignity might finally sleep without
the within of a star shaped wound
to emerge from behind the deep cover of an aging photograph
whence your soul's shadow smiled like a lazy fern
and the energetic child out braved the shocked Adonis

there is an undeniable whereto as your fingers blow bubbles
washed by the whether or not to further
a gentleman shall always keep his secrets passed the obituary relish
forever a disciple to his pondered heart while
the narrow prophet can only bridle at an opened conscience

while keeping the adultery at arms-length,
a good four thousand miles hence, but leaving so little space
that science cannot detect a gap,
hope is stretched across a salty segregation
whose surface offers mirror to us each
and furnishes a briny indulgence
once the barriers of taste end at our fingertips

yet, still, every morning, my **** will stink of yesterday’s bad decisions