Once upon a time I loved your rectum
as well as your ear, your skin took on
the majesty of feather when you spread

No one said the spasm of battle would last forever. Nor asked: Is there a violence sadder than the word island? Said: you have found a ruse and will reinvent it forever. Swords will continue to cams from sheaths, the crest will lodge the fiery moon and from now on a tangled mass of sails will signify exalted impatience, not the traditional annoyance of fear.

I write suicide notes in bed late at night
So they’ll know when I’m dead
That I was not insane, or worse, unkind.

Science was a walk in the woods
Where my neighbour's dad did his lecturing.
It was a tiny metal cannister, kept

But God gets away with it time and time again
And gets adored for doing it as well

Be one again, her crispen crystalline
Arithmetic raveled and riddled in Time,

Remembering that war, I’d near believe
We didn’t need the enemy, with whom
Our dark encounters were confused and few

For a saving grace, we didn’t see our dead,
Who rarely bothered coming home to die
But simply stayed away out there

A library with endless shelves: the halls
Receding into binding-lined allées.
And every book a life, hardbound and standing

A man says yes without knowing
how to decide even what the question is,
and is caught up, and then is carried along