“It is a divine precedent/you perpetuate! Roll on, reels of celluloid, as the great earth rolls on!”

A silvery brand sways from my neck,
and whispers truths grown old;
still I find myself running with my legs pressed shut,
led by a ghostly smile printed on my small oblivion, the way
to new Jerusalem.
The poet’s choice chimes sweeter than cowardice,
so let me clutch at fragile nothings, not slip sudden down insincere glass
I’d drink a thousand mediocre perhapses, trace paradise
with crooked floorboards and woeful stains. Ask me again,
how my hunt progresses, as long as I know
you feast on the paltry spoils –
so will we walk unremarkable streets, and love them? These are
dusk-addled plans, arresting only in their
foolishness. Food for fuckwits,
enchanting missteps –

So the masks are sloughed off,
and my heart stretches a shining ladder, reaches –
– does the body bind me here, in old wallpaper and new longing?
Or do I dwell in fabricated grace? Hypocrisy creeps,
as the night seals itself up over coarse red rooves
and the rooks tear open
old yearning, grown stale.
Did I stare too long
above the traitorous tracks, as you, beautiful place,
flew away?
If I had turned my head and seen my infancy approach,
Would you have come back to me? and
if I seek you now, in the quagmire,
God knows
you will have changed.

How ridiculous we are. Fuck it, swallow these sobs
like rum; I’ve faith in somewhere, and cast my visions –
lurid in the sky, and violent, fragile as a clandestine glass;
stronger than its contents.
Still the sun breaks, bleeds away, devours
my conjecture; I don’t know
if life will disappoint us,
and I clutch tight the infant dream
and as Ingrid,
I grow sick on wondering


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