GLINT in my eye, as I hear faith likened to
OPIUM again. Tired tactic, trite and worn.
WORSE: you lay claim to noetic
DROIT du seigneur: please yourself in your beliefs, ravage another’s.

URINE trickles away, yet not regret, as I lean on prickly
HEDGE. I can’t go on like this. Dizzy head craning up to sky, I find it:
NORTH star above—even drunk, I can plot the dipper’s handle.
LASSO me, Polaris, a stable place from which to change.

RALPH along the bank staked claim for gold and named the river Ralph.
INGOTs, not names of rivers, shone upon golden ingots to his imagination,
COVET so much a thing it becomes all: Ralph saw only gold.
AMITY never took hold along the river Ralph.

BRAKE, gloom and cease: grey mood release!
AORTA ferrying air to every cell, carry forward joy as well.
OPERA or chorale now sound of many strands one chord in beauty crowned.
HASTY claim of fate’s iron law, replaced by free and wondering awe.

WORDY me, gab my way through every turning.
ORDER, grace must run in depths beneath shallow speech.
SCOFF. Condemn. These beckon, false channels for words to wend.
SPOOL of grace, unwind a thicker strand to thread me past my gift of gab.