This empty revel

i.
 
Come walk with me. No use wandering alone on this  
absent curve with this melancholy  
 
in hand—this stain on your palms.  
 
You try not to let it pester— though it slinks up your sleeve. You mustn’t touch it
 
           It’s prickly; this blackened scab that sullies your ivory; the wound— a trinket of wry  
                                                      with little relent.  
 
ii.
 
For all this sorrow forbids you to bathe in the malt of another man’s brew. A potence found only in the ones who have forgiven
                                      those gritty & aligned souls
 
In witness of your subconscious— the voice within inquires
 
Yet, these anesthetized replies substantiate the ignorance of the inner voice
                                        illuminating this charade  
 
the light behind your eyes, flickering
manufactured in an auditorium full of performers practicing their lines
 
           relieve me  
 
from this empty revel. Shall loneliness be that harsh & impossible— like whittling totems out of the filth
 
of dusty breath in the face of the stranded
                                                                  and cold
 
where we can only exhale half-woven blankets
        on a loom  
               fixed not of trivial matters—  
                     the tapestry we weave is complex
 
and cloaks at the pace of an echo beating its way through the chamber door
                            to reach the nucleus of our woe
 
iii.
 
it’s the weeds that chafe the swagger. The drag of the reeds  
 
& the drone of their guise, you can’t even withstand a whisper soft  
 
         enough to capture a melody within this mire.
 
iv.
 
I wilt by and by—face stained of rash—
 
inflamed & reddening. Etch me of lath and plaster: cover me with strength— with impenetrable gains & a voice that silences  
              the fingers wagging at death in this parlour  
 
in time I will dance to my own melody— the tunes that unwind
            and spills the joy that stoops my frame  
 
v.
 
come walk with me. Talk with thee. tell me of
 
the meadow of poppies that put you to sleep. Tell me what made you awaken
 
& i will tell you of the redundancy of thought  
 
i had to mull over to idle there