Supine, roads sprawl so lazily
That they collapse to planes,
Not aiding stumbling travelers
As knotted sinews strain.

The trouble started on the day
After the day before.  
Youth and hope and love decay,
And regret won’t restore.
It seems this old and weary world
Holds much more bad than good.  
I’d have assayed, but I was hurled
In this life before I could.  
A world of cloud and bitterness,
A life of scrape and thorn,  
So who would ever acquiesce
Ever to be born?  
Because briars outnumber flowers
By ten to one at least,
Weakness humbles mighty powers.
Famine goes before the feast.  
But feasts are more than fillings ups,
And hunger’s just a pinch.
And emptiness can’t stopper cups,
And straitening can’t cinch.  
Bounty and joy are plenitude,
And destitution lack,
So revel in what’s nice, or lewd,
No loss can take it back.  
A single flower fortifies
To brush away the burs.    
Striving wins because it tries.  
Forlorn despairing errs.

Badinage and Persiflage
Make such a merry pair,
Chatting and bantering all day.
No spiteful gossip there.  

Each goes without acquaintances.
Each has one single friend.  
As solitary sprites, they speak
Of words, without an end.

Some thieves have burgled every house;
The rich are sorrowing
At sacrilege and heirlooms lost,
Spoons, silks and sapphire rings.  
The poorer tenants mourn as well;
Their losses are their doom.  
Without the coin for food or rent,
Hunger and eviction loom.  
Just down the street, a misanthrope
Who lives in an old tub
Cackles at their lamentations,
And gives his hands a rub.  
He used to own a battered cup,
That and a bowl for alms,
But then he saw an urchin drink
Right out of his cupped palms.  
He learned that cups were luxury,
And threw the thing away.  
He’s happier in poverty,
And that’s just how he’ll stay.  
He boasts to passers-by he’s safe,
Since thieves can never steal
Knowledge or virtue from the good.
Wisdom alone is real.  
How better for that mendicant
If thieves could somehow take
Self-satisfaction from such prigs.
Oh mellow him for pity’s sake.

A drunkard’s guzzled several days,
And staggering outside,  
Dull and disoriented, seeks,
But cannot find, a guide.  
The hour proclaimed is even six,
Twice daily otium.  
The arrow hangs at bottom rim
Like a dead pendulum.  
The birth and dying of the light
Are symmetry in dim.
The day is leaching into night,
Or morning’s failing him.

Black shadows are all sycophants
That mimic every shape.  
White shadows seal their bearers up,
And bury what they ape.  
Black shadows curl off thick sunlight,
And launch themselves from dust.  
White shadows flake from winter’s breath,
Congealed as vapor’s rust.      
In two dimensions, or in three,
Shade and snow are booleans,
Dark in intersection tracing truth.
And snow in difference.

The crystals groan, whenever crushed
Under a melting tread.
Snow faithfully fulfilled its oath,
And did just what it said.  

In recompense for stinging cold,
This mantle vowed to be
Finer than the finest of white sands
And never slippery.

The elevator’s sealed its lips.
It keeps its secrets well.
Inside might hunch a nameless face,
I really cannot tell.  
To stand, a pair, so silently,
Bound in an unvoiced pact,
Is sore and heavy awkwardness
Light coughing can’t redact.  
An almost empty iron box
Is crushing loneliness,
Better to take on dozens next,
Shame smothered in that press.  
Anonymity’s a heavy weight
To carry between two,  
But shrouded multitudes can share
Whatever burdens you.

King David was a righteous king,
A shepherd loved by God,
And Joab did the ugly work
Without a single nod.  
A principal can stroll the halls,
Grandfatherly and kind.
His number two’s the children’s bane,  
Reviled in student mind.  
The highest of the high can shine,
All warmth and lenity,
Their trusted second is the sting.  
Cursed in synecdoche.  
Every Adama needs a Tigh,
All discipline and screeds,
Since troops can sooner love a chief
Untainted by cruel deeds.

An hour-glass stands up nice and straight
On a flat, polished end,
While bells suspend like carrion
On rods that never bend.  
Grains of sand in a transparent bulb,
Mustered in a smooth cone,  
Slip through a graceful crystal neck
To toll in silky tones.  
But as bells swing and clang, they gulp
From a meridian,  
One sideways to the zenith zone,
And fill themselves again.    
A bell will always know the time,
But still politely wait
For eager hands to yank their cord,
Even when slightly late.  
But a depleted hour-glass sits
Until impatient hands
Can flip it over on its crown
And fill its heads with sand.