Piercing winds, fast and with malice Whisk away, playfully, the revolutions, The songs and smoky thoughts Which I saw smoldering right in front of me, I see them rising in the night At the ceiling In dull streetlight Mere abstractions, soft and white, But roar the horn Of guilty pasts To their image the smoke holds fast What soured scorn and blackened mien Reject my constant repentant whine And I travail, until I sleep Their jeers and anger I choose to keep. And worthy, still I lay in bed To even look into a dome ahead Finite, bleak, and hopeless that I find only appropriate. And so close, I grasp its bars And wince ghosts whip and slash At my wrists which I hold out And tell them “harder” ‘tween teeth gnashed. The day light comes, And illumes my worth By my feet spelled out in the dirt And just and fair, to dirt I pair That’s why my eyes Are fixed there All I gaze on, vibrance to ashen waste Ask the smoke The he and she, I corrupted chaste. So my neck can take nine tails My head is bowed in penitence Yet, there is no flogger But my own guilt, My crimes, like flowers, From proper minds wilt. I’ll keep these eyes downcast, Where they belong And move without progression For I’ve done wrong And with the ground I stay To payback what debts that vanish To pay them everyday.