Author: David Wright

COAST is still, first stillness of centuries,
AWOKE an older day, diesel gone, ebbed away,
CLOTH sails unfurled are now for trade.
ANNEX past to present, rig masts and harness wind!

STIFF bulrushes keep crocs out; basket nestler will soon speak, a
QUOTHer of the quothiest words: fiats, ilocutions from on high.
MUCKY Nile a strange place for this story to start, but election is a
WEDGE, the axe of divine will splitting into a groaning world.

SPASM–muscles’ healthy strength gone awry, as though health now
TRAWLs for malign opportunity, joining in the fall, in entropy. What
LEVERs, choices, join in the fall, not mere nature’s malfunction? A
BIRTH: chance to find spasms and levers anew. And hope for grace.

VALUE: a belief declaimed when its strength is fragile,
ALONG with certainty about other’s lack thereof. To be
ALIVE is to justify, to defend, to deliver apologia—to fight for being more than
LEAST. Least has only grace, and least is rich.

TOTEM of the age: the virtual place away from place
BASAL stratum: not what is, but what we choose there to be,
PULSE, synapse spark, controller button mashed.
COUCH, raft on the world river, floating in the pixel flow.

ENTER the room, keep calm.
TRULY try to remember yourself as you circulate. The
USUAL veneer of courtesy is required. A
CIVIL tone will get you far. But you will be alone as ever.

AMISS. Adaze. Awry. Adrift.
SHOWY neon, flashing screens. A step is a
LURCH. A venture a fiasco.
SAUCY boast before ruin.

KNEAD each day’s dough and
DALLY in the slowing slips of time. Mine
AMAZEment from ordinary veins of rock. Mirage
IDEALs will have you blinking and next you know it’s all gone.