Glosa in Middle Age

To have arrived here, weighed down with fistfuls

of calendar entries, unsuitably

boggle-eyed as if new—

so these are mountains,

there is horror, which is the subway line

where I may lay down my creed

and when will my breath stop

acidulating like this?

Exceed, said 27. In all things exceed.

Shake some action’s what I need.

27 was animated

but has lately been absent.

With them we raved and with them

came. A dervish verve escorted them

always, which now I feel dribbling out

like the cruel juices of the steak I didn’t feed

on, didn’t slaughter, wouldn’t want to but—.

In a dream I asked permission

and 27 agreed

to let me bust out at full speed.

That was a dream. The juices a memorial.

At present, I’m perishing—

but mayhap not right now. You too?

Something immense is unwinding a spool of wire.

You trace it and find, what else:

Death on the end of the strand like a bead.

To have arrived by spoonfuls of undecisions,

to have arrived knowing you only fled.

You drool over a bowl of soup, snorting greed

and I’m sure that’s all you need.

Mayhap not sure. Mayhap

doors swing open even after juicelessness

and soup. They might open onto tigers.

Or a vision of  The Real True—

after the shakes yield to a long loosening stare.

Take hold of the knob: You’re bitten or you bite.

If I, yet untoothless, can chew up despair,

I’ll take a good calm look at the dark I’ve been given.

Is that where I’m headed, with my hairband-searchlight

to make it all right?