Submissions by berkums

If you're right and all the world
is still as solid as it used to be
I'll take my leave, and crazily
I'll hope to change my mind today
To be a spider on a sonnet
or in all my honest effort
try to close the doors of comets
melting toward the stars it never knew
And if you made in me my sanity
then you can take it just as easily
by turning wine back into water
for choosing minds we won't be able
but every time you speak to me
it's in the flesh of all I came to be

pay me to worry while
I call it luck for worth
or call upon a jury

find and hurry to usurp
the trust we bartered
thought we'd turn
back into earth

play me for a story, fire
that does all but burn
away our listening

knowledge first, though
'motions make us curse
and bless the wires
holding us together

say we're sorry, sad
and lonely is a nurse
who cuts our feet, but
never cleans the knife

like amber doesn't spoil
fighting never pours
like oil on the parts
we used to be as brothers...

If beauty like hers can fail
I throw my being into air
to be no more and feel no fall,
for no existence is contained
that does not wish to be profane
and utter at the sight of her
the truth that we are ugly things
except for her who stings
with eyes that coals
cannot withstand
and lips that snare
yet do no harm,
a mind that stares
in face of courage
men regret their foolish ways,
and telling then she goes
to say I cannot host
what cannot bare
the frost. To boast,
I'll be the most
when she appears.