Poem: Dust

 

Dust

 

an outcast had no choice

save to wander, a mere shroud,

and to hawk a snakeoil powder

that robbed the skin of its vim

and tarnished the rest,

a slow emaciation of luster.

 

it was a granular affair, this

sandglass sort of compulsion--

to conjure a feast which

feted the outlandish etiquette of vultures 

and banqueted an assortment of worms. 

 

the outcast, so successful, built mansions wherever,

from the Sahara to the Marianas Trench,

even in outposts that lurked in lungs:

lungs of lovers, of criminals of relatives,

and ants and despots and clowns and masquers and 

sheep and even in the hallowed ecclesiastic receptacles   

that tickled the nostrils of saints.

 

it made sense, perhaps, that the outcast

was maligned as infernal, 

while life strived and bred and waxed and 

suffered and toiled around the pules

of the latest, greatest infant-wave.

 

perhaps there was something 

of a connoiseur in the outcast, 

tinged by a penchant for the cruel:

which hope, which thrill, which future, 

which sinful succulent nature,

could dissolve sweetest

in the latté dunes of time?

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8/2/25 ... massive edits awful ... 

10/13/24 eds