a miser

managing middles

planting loosestrife, 

caught with coroner's hands 

pallid as the pale horse

waiting to ride

 

an irony 

taking lunch on a crossbeam

next to so-called friends 

bound solely by necessity :

a family's blood debt

they eat in silence .

yet buildings are measured in stories 

untold and entombed secrets.

 

a posterboy 

killed by bags, dime-sized 

hiccups in the bravado 

of white powdered mills

grinding bones to make bread

twice daily 

giants hollowed out 

heads hung weary 

with the weight of growing occupancy 

 

a hangman

pacing 

thru the thorny breeze of a crossroads

breakfast beneath nails 

flipped up nervously 

(spinach and egg whites)

sickness and the weighty cost 

of being the only one left alive

doomed to dry in every solitude 

just by following orders 

 

and lo, 

by droves 

a nothing flocked to me

 

and lo, 

by droves

nothing flocked to me 

 

unmet Sisteen hands outstretched 

fallen foreign stomaches wrenched 

the crack of pipes, steam screaming 

the mournful howl of street dogs 

slick as carcasses, they flee 

 

and lo, by droves, 

Nothing flocked to me 

 

pouring in and drawn thru die 

ears and mouth the secrets fly :

oozing, sickly, clogging my kitchen drain

lousy with mortality 

 

and lo,

by droves ,

nothing flocked to me. 

 

hallowed be that sweet cistern 

to flush away the sins I've earned 

branded by a burning chorus of greatness , cooling under the briny whips of winter, crackled in cacaphony 

for all and else we beg 

hands cupped , stifling 

deafening heart beats 

gnashing teeth, crashing into the floors 

pulp abraded , cast off 

anything else 

anything else

anything else but this, i plea

 

And lo, 

by droves 

nothing flocked to me