Like clockwork we agree, to our broken clock
Twice a day -- the rest is a hiss
Of enmity and longing, pleadings for what can
Never be. Bliss, the critics say,
The horse on course will miss its whip and jockey.
A spirit must be broken like a spine
In the book of grievance, encased in ice
To encapsulate the noise. The silence,
Though occasional, is the gift for the soul,
A fair exchange on the planet of war.
In some schools I'm the hero for getting through
But tell that to the moon, whose narcotic milk
Won't feed the mouth deprived of bristols
To call one's own. We boys we do such sullen things
At the persistence of tyrants, the knife we draw
A pain we can call pleasure.
II.
I did agree to love. I did agree to fear.
I did agree to veil myself behind the silver mirror.
There are some things that I have learned in time
Of who I am and how I came to be,
And every single one of them's a lie,
The bite of that bitter apple the not me.
It is always someone else who does this,
The murders in my name. And, always, just by seeing,
I take all the blame. As victory,
For even that can hurt me, transcendent
As I am, a galaxy.
It's how I'm known,
The rumor turned 3D, the murmur that becomes
A raging stream, and feeds so many capillaries
The trees start to believe that they are green.
III.
Where we have been is a mystery,
The future history.
The thing now's to take it all in
And turn it back like the cousin at the door
Sent packing.
Who are we, when the real don't talk
And the mauvaise-froid share the same heart?
The dancers stand with weapons drawn
As the back-beat shifts from the 2-step.
I take my ten-gallon of the possible off
From what she wanted, the impossible to fulfill.
Thus the shadow of the cattle hat fell across
The floor, like that holographic horse just appeared
Ununseeable, from that snow-blind winter scene.
