without a sense of guilty conscription
drafting a line of soldiers without boots
bare soot on a gravel path to nowhere
givens: here, now, in, beyond, insensible
the stage is setting on a theatrical monsoon
a rain of fire on a parade of swells
the ocean can take it, can you not?
far above the heights from the pergola
incense wetted to leave room for the smell
of a tie, bows to the silent crowd without
an outbreak of socks for feet that cannot
feel the march of the crimes of an entire
people from hundreds of centuries before
cannot sex bring the door to a close
asking for a friend who is not a human
but loves it more than a group of them
ever could, could it not? is there an
identification card for not here for it
idiomatically a forthright left behind
the dumpster out back from the vietnamese
restaurant where you eat until you see
visions of a past that must have been some
omniscient being's version of heavenly
paradise founders back to a garden that
can't keep the fence mended even if it's
full of snakes that don't know what
an apple looks like as they're falling
on all the tails that might be found
Roman Ryan 