Sententious caprice and all that jazz

I will sit in bed, picking then flicking

Psychic scabs,

not from a sense of duty, but only to keep time

and faith with the lucid grim shadows

on the inside wall.

so much for insomnia. I won’t let sleep creep

up on me, overcome or stun me.

Feet that fret the next blind step, I’ve learned,

will like sweaty boots they call home.

Well appointed turned out and slick,

more than ready and roaring to be in

the automatic mode in which we roam.

As long as I can complain about what happens

I’m ok with what happens.

Color me purple and defer the slow saunter

for now. It is the kind of transit in which the

third step forward after the words back

subsists in this, and only this ——

submit and lesson and learn.

Not just mouth the stupefied message,

nor just chew the cud of the pat facts.

Closing in on the delusion of closing in on

Anything full-stopped definitive.

Having picked and scraped and itched,

The scab levered up like

an attic door propped up

into the stale waiting darkness

The vivid red flows

and I couldn’t quite tell, and wouldn’t dare ask

what were the stakes.

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