you don't stray far from language.
ineluctable syllables
compass you.
clipt style's your tailor.
you don't stray far from th'auricular purple.
you don't stray far.
you're stranger to ideas, that starch in heathen wilds.
events don't intrude here
nor rest and breathe, suspirate,
pretend to be more than a theoretical moment.
there's little stray here,
less scene,
no once at all.

where's the glance you'd eventuate?
the broken measure you'd repair?
where the love you'd perpetuate,
where's your where?

you don't depart out of hurt
hunt out of hunger
thirst from out of lovedry caustics that
locate you precisely here

but stumble down lexical stairs and landings
by gravity drawn no urgency more,

naught but henriads result
pickled sonnets, felt poor.
 

25 sep 99