Proper Artifice

Desperation leaked profusely

From my yielding palms

As I scrawled absurdly from

One ear to the other.

Uncertain in the manner

Of direction or orientation,

I scratched at the twisted line,

Screaming at it to shape

Itself into perfection.

So I turned the warped smile

And discovered the other

Face of madness.

 

A crooked colonnade

Of contoured facades

Haunted my shaking hands

With irreparable flaw, so

My malefic fingers lacerated

The relic mineral busts

With rusted railroad nails,

Then I watched them restore

Their intended design:

Wrecked and wrought by

Misery’s delusion song,

Wrecked and wrought by

Apoplectic hands.

 

The stars fell in line askew,

Hanged by man’s black rope

Like dolls in a pillory,

As admonition to the straight

And immaculate who

Enjoy vivacious deficiency.

My eyes thrust to the heavens

Expecting, needing to witness

Constellation contortions,

Wanting the sky to fall

As dead weight onto the

Shoulders of every woman

And child… yet they remained…

 

So I shattered my eyes.