The Once And Future Dayspring

I.

They thought it was a phase.
Thought, hey, maybe one of these days

they'd bring themselves back to their bodies

for good.

We thought it clear
that we live and die by our names,

that we stamp out the darkness
by playing.

My name is Dayspring.

Twenty-three years old,
in near-perfect health.

Yet thousands of deaths.

Sharp, thunderous thousands,
thousands with no hyperbole.

O commendable thousands sing
elastic mortality of Dayspring.

Dead hoisting the flag at Warsong.
Dead with tea at the twenty-fifth hour.
Dead sun-struck through fog of war.

Dead crying on the bathroom floor.
Dead for my transgressions on Tarren Mill.

Laid to waste by cloak n' dagger death.
Dead trembling in the resurrection well.
Dead protecting them who would carry me.
Dead loving them who would carry me.
Dead to those who've no proof otherwise.
Dead falling from the water of Skettis.
Dead with haste which breeds mistakes.

Impressed with how dead.
Dead condensing the bad into past.
Dead at the outset of yet another conquest.

Dead escaping my murderous shadow.
Jumped dead by the well-prepared horde.
Discovered dead at the thirty-sixth hour.
Pressing on dead despite fleeing particles.
Dead at sea sunk from the pressure.
Dead destroyed by banks of the river.
Dead kneeling beneath trees of Ashenvale.
In blessed ecstasy dead though who can tell.
Inevitable, indelible death.

Head Over Water

Enough scales tipping,
flecking, sparkling
through the dark.

Enough petty insults,
enough grandstanding
and carnival barking.

Let documents bind.
Let us keep Yemen
in mind.

No one
uses their illusions
for any mirage
but the unlikely
conglomerate
of identity
that is
democracy.

World watches.
We watch back.

Blank Canvass

Slipped disks
between fuzzy
asterisks, grinning:
blinking in disbelief
from a sudden
swivel toward
difference.

Fuss over blueprints,
concern for earnings,
all second-rate worries
grating in the dark.

What achieve?
Who undone the udon?

How blank the canvass?

Insecurities masked
by safety-net attempt.
At least you tried, right?
After finding that
sitting on your hands
cuts circulation
to your conscience.

Reserve

My lips buzz,
a bee nearly entering
the pink, yellow & white
of my open mouth.
The bulldozer
vibrates in the valley.
I cannot stay.

Lone spider
advancing—help
horizon descend
so it can climb
fearless.
Silk surpasses.
I cannot stay.

Swarm
of adulation
gathers odor thick
with sun-clusters.
The gates seal
their lips at sunset.
I cannot stay.

(public disservice announcement)

is what this won't be called,
the title slated to be replaced
at the outset. I search for
sediments and impediments
beneath the gravel exterior,
feeling superior, enough.

Not another sound,
lest you suggest
that I start the poem over.

We're in this now,
so listen.

The title, never part
of the show as strives
to be. Looking in.
From the top on down.
Keeping up.
Sticking around.






















Oh,
thought we were finished.
Well,
it's over
it's over
it's over
now. Good riddance!

Warbler

Never got to decorate

your shrine, plaster
polaroids of you smiling
on pink spider-string,
stuff so strong it holds
your drink while you
attempt that routine
you've been practicing,

where you tight-rope
across my puffed-out
chest.

I'm no designer of interiors
or explorer of frontiers.
Not one speck an exception
to pursuit's golden rule.

Just a peckish red warbler

yodeling to the great blue,
treating the vast resplendence
the way I would treat you.

SPEL FOR BODY

Oh god, body.
              Oh, god body.
Body of ghost.
                             Most godlike body.
              My body most godly.
              My ghost, no body.
                            Nobody's been god.
                            Nobody's got body.
                                        No one's been body.
         Body me.
                                                    Body god.
Body blame god daily.
         Body say good golly.
         Body brave some body.

Some body gave god.
                                                               Some body got ghost.
Some brave's a body.
          Some body bathe.
                     Some body never laid.
Some depraved body.

           
                                                            Body up on auction.

                                                            Body broke with sickness.


                    Body brave god.
                          Body goads response.
                                   Body stuck in quandary.
                          Body count days.
                    Body slick with malaise.

                                             
                                      What body but your own?
What ghost got body sewn?  
                         What sees with body?
               Who tries to be some body?
                                     What body question effect?
                                     What body display defects?
Who markets body?          

   
                                                                            Who dispute that soul be body?





Let go banal pursuit body!

                                             

                                                               Let lie grumbling crooked body!



                                Let drag tongue body!




                Let play on ribs body!




                                                    Let voice existence body!




                       Let sweat coat stifling body!




                                                    Let steam nettle body!




                 Let fly copious body!


                 
                                                                   Let determine body!



                                   Let slack sour body!



                                                                                      Let filth body!



     Let love lock body—

Will you be my Vice-President?

Will you speak for me when I am gone?
Will you walk with me astride the wharf?
Will you shore up my heart’s coalition?
Will you store my passwords in your pocketbook?
Will you tease and hint at your future without me?
Will you lend me a taste of your credibility?
Will you ease me through this metamorphosis?
Will you honor more than my policies?
Will you gush about me when you are tipsy?
Will you reach for my hand on the tarmac?
Will you water the plants when I am away?
Will you attach your name to mine so that we will never again be the same?

best things

The best things
said to me
are the hints

that keep me
going,
not too different

from the way
a con-man
is kept going

by the thrill
of previously
successful cons.

Been here all this time

Light

drips down

the window-well,

portends
a little peace.
Conflict

carries no
ID. No

flinching.

Parsing
my recklessness, 

I shave

every time
I swivel my
sight toward 

the window. 

My hope-

sprinkled

projects gorge.

Gelatinous
cage-lining.

My just
desserts,
deserting me.