The tide of dawn breaks in a surf-slap of forced urgency
Its backwash the limb-snagging routine of mechanical puppetry
A spray of dazed haste, clock watching and checks
Until the silent road is tread under the floating pale moon
Nature holds its breath, still waiting for sound to awake
From bent trees hurtling by on the familiar asphalt bends

The first arrow volley across the meeting table looses
All nurse wounds, some incapacitated for the day
Dull-eyed dashes for cover soon ensue
In the dust cloud kicked up by time's dragging heels
Through which the future whispers of release and light
But until that day knees shall buckle and heads shall bow
Amid carnage of fault and blame and fractured logic

The hours end in meager relief, draining with light
Back to the roof of a shell no home to the heart
Its inhabitants look askance in the perpetual clamour
Eroding the final bastions of serenity
Excess decibels resound off walls too close
Tugging on sanity's tattered edges