Socketless and Sailor

      Socketless and sailor 
      In the world's winded veins 
      Scented genesis and coffinsilk 
      I mock the soberest cockerel 
5     Diving from the prism_spitting 
      Pinnacle of the world's mast 
      Uselessly singing 
      And rant like a wronged girl 
      All my sweetest notes 
10    Over ignorant houses 
      Slumbered in death and morning light. 
       
      Out of the closeted shout this echo beats 
      Features of a sinning man on tin 
15    More pressed to anguish in a dial's sigh 
      Than any victim of time heretically cried 
      Has been bludgeoned by suns 
      Or a pauper's bliss been 
      Crimped in a penny's fear 
20    Or any tale of the world 
      Cauled in a scorpion's sting 
      Has twisted its smile on a man's side 
      Or any climbed tirade 
      Spoken in wishes 
25    That nature's weary fabulist 
      Set down. 
       
      Graveturning in wishes 
      As a wish is a kiss 
30    My manbones shriek 
      In blooded inks 
      Out of a rage welled and calmed 
      As any bird's ratcheted turn 
      Over the thumbing sea at dawn 
35    Crawls at clouds 
      In inching desire as each wingbeat clips 
      Over measured cessations 
      Chewing ships and bones to flour. 
       
40    Out of each brick 
      The cold dawn shakes 
      And each root tooth of daisies 
      Cragged in the fingering spring 
      Floods pulse and fever 
45    To ramshackle gods agog 
      As saints in whispers 
      Each aghast their closed wings keep 
      Singing of statuary 
      And the boiling joy 
50    Of the devil's boyish kiss. 
       
      So I this saintly mort cry down 
      And each nailed lip kiss 
      Quagmired in hatred 
55    Tried and hung, on pentecostal cross and hatch 
      Birthing the blood plant 
      Insisting in stitches 
      For this world the word's wound. 
      So I, crumbling on windfall, 
60    On sold bones and the tarot told 
      Watch hatred disaster, man and god fall, 
      And all loved things end.

 

From the collection "Constellations in December"

Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]

More information available on gregglory.com.