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.

The moon is grim and sly, and keeps
Pale secrets from her twin.  
She hides the darkest of her blushes
Behind a slivered grin.
Her greater, fertile, sister earth,
Greater in girth, not age,
Knows a pallid, pock-marked cheek
But not a shaded rage.  
A barren spinster, gray from birth,
Can scarcely bear to see
From callous sister such a show
Of broad fecundity.