How Decades Pass Like Graves: Day Twenty-One

(sestina)
Indiff’rent lines that garner my dismay,  
In carmine light of ancient fires’ regard.  
Where men in suits can churn out corp’rate rap,  
But guitar strings bear rust like prison chains.  
Where pens bleed ink in pocket stains not po’ms,  
And whiskey’s burn alone could quell the night.  
 
How decades pass like graves in worsted night:  
Where coming-to reveals a heart’s dismay,  
Where thoughts of love dismiss like Spanish po’ms.  
A mindless dash, careening’s feigned regard,  
That moves in circled loops like iron chains,  
Like Folsom crews on ten to thirty raps.  
 
Like Office Space, white guys and gangster rap,  
The endless days that bring on flaccid nights,  
The days on days on days that link like chains,  
Where dead hopes pass in years with no dismay,  
And no perspective found with no regard,  
Just dust-in-sheets on books of Lorca po’ms.  
 
A life of numb despair like Prufrock’s po’m,  
But still I feel a thrum in clever raps,  
A smile that breaks when cursive words regard.  
But muted by the stranger of my nights,  
The critic words surprise, the strikes’ dismay,  
Reminding who controls, who pulls the chains.  
 
Just like Distortion’s song, Like Ball and Chain,  
My soul still fought to give its voice, its po’ms,  
But those nights I would sing would bring dismay.  
My words on undeaf ears incur their raps,  
That other words might raise and split the night,  
So was the nature of their harsh regard.  
 
In longing for those few that I regard,  
The few, in hearing never showed me chains,  
The few with whom, alone, I’d pass the night.  
Revisiting the grace of Panchen’s po’ms  
The poet’s voice on vinyl’s hiss and rap.  
A time that seems a ‘mare of my dismay.  
 
Regard like graves the worsted nights’ dismay,  
Like words from Compton’s Eighty’s kings of rap,  
From Cali’s Love and chains, I’d bring my po’ms  
 
21/30  
 
Words: 314  
Unique Words: 183  
 
#NaPoWriMo2019  
 
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