THE FLAT CONSTELLATIONS
The humble are born as loaves of bread
To fatten bellies full of air
To sulk along with bedraggled face
Avenues rife with crust and rind
Their limbs swing to every beat
Oblivion’s metronome clacks away the dirge
They are recycled anew
By the most gregarious tenants of the overworld
The reprobates and mavens and crooked all
Forever ringing in the New Year
A conflagration of daffodils is raking its fingers
Across the hearts of earthly nations
And searing through the countryside
Where the pious cry for secret harvest moons
Who would snake throughout the sky
And croon their purple melodies
For the azure Zen of a world
That is all but drowned in its reflections
Now the sting of one inflated ember is enough
To disquiet even the supplest balm of breeze
Sent skulking through forgotten alleys
Homes for the living dead
The eyes of once-honest people
Retire in their sockets
To some elliptical moon
To some constellation
That beams toward us
Clips of a fabled past
As we lie naked across our bed sheets
A murmur of swollen voices can be heard
An undertone of wholesome pain
Yet the pleasure this provokes
Is enough to temper wicked flame
And for one elusive moment
It feels so good to burn
From birth we have learned to march as pawns
To further ranks and make no sacrifice
Deciduous children brandish spears
And crown each other loudly
Our crudely shaped reveries
At the speed of sound clash
The mind of ministry is botched
And we lift our faces to the sky
Prostrate with our languid prophecies
Our hands now clasped like holy wedges
Cutting right angles to Cassiopeia