1.
Put aside bonds, struggle and row;
cry out and strain, thigh, arch,
toes to curving shoulders.
Bend thy bonds with the pull of each nerve,
each flex, cry against
marvellous bonds.
2.
All these bonds, these bonds in me, I want to snap—overhauling, overhauling I’ve had enough of, taking off facades, craning in facades to tack on. Certain structural elements persist, and I wish them gone. So I strive against in odd moments, taken from my routine; when such fatal elements rear their heads from a well-populated background. Certain integuments I chew at, and roil my jaw, but no one fiber on the intractables is scratched; these bonds, that pose as necessaries between the portions of my makeup.
3.
Vision blacks and dizzy mounts,
the bonds unbroken, the effort-stock
near unto spent. But still,
cry, and stubbornly row
‘til the clearest mark
that speaks “extinct”,
“extinguished”, past
which the not proceed.
-2003
