fundamental forms –

here, the dangerous, inchoate unions

hunting us down for directions

on a littered highway -- how do we

stand to test our mettle with

a slick night of impoverished intent? -- Who

is the Master of this Situation?

Are we bleeding from too many portholes? -- Do

we succumb

beneath our grinding Clock, ready

for explosions but wary of an inert despair

unsettled? -- These

dwarfed occasions of a sullen tribe

left to fend for its own

in a circular world hurl reason to the sea

and claim

victims for the vanquished, desert-death

for a compliant desecration of Sense -- We

hammer out Justice, we

hammer out the love

between our brothers and our sisters but are unheard

beneath the L-Trains

and our cultured Poverty -- Why

do we

make

angels in the snow? -- they

will surely freeze here in an unclaimed Winter

suited

to whisky and barstools . . . I

cannot blink, my

eye is blinded

by the sawdust thrown at our feet

in the sculptor's Studio, there

where glacial forms

emerge as from a day's inebriation

awakening to light

and Purpose . . .

*