Staying afloat on a low note
a lost man crosses crippled bridges
carrying a turtle’s shell and flour
Singing off pitch, making leaves shrivel
Off abound, forbidden from sight,
glass air pierces his stale soul.

Wonder yonder he thinks to fire
of foreseen history pocketed in a square
while passing a brown polar bear
He hears nothing but bats communicating
when he saunters the woods at night
In the middle of his sleep      
his big toe squeaks and the bed shrieks
and the frigid air nips his shriveled lips.

He once made friends with
a single blade of grass in the desert
               but it died the day after they met
In the grand scheme of irony
he doesn’t see the reason for pancakes
They make his taste buds scream for quiet.

Whether or not he sees straight
is an entirely different question
If he comes to a fork in the road
he tends to keep walking forward
As if he thinks there’s not much difference
between right and wrong in present tense.

There’s too much for him to understand
in an overwhelming world; an abandoned creature
under starlight in a red sky reverie
he seeks rhythm from deflated composition
but fears that tapping his foot
will crumble his hypnagogic melody.