Dark Wind

If perdition indeed holds a
place for faces such as mine
whose lines are the essence
of a depressing viewpoint,
then I openly welcome my fate.
Lucifer, set my plate somewhere
between Dickinson and Twain
so I may learn from their sardonic
wit just what it means to be human
and what it means to love and to feel
and to reel against it all and to fall and
to rise again over and over till the end
of time in the sublime ecstasy of the
soul's droll brilliance.