Excruciation

This tired day

Is yawning

Through vaporous lassitude,

And I stretch

Myself into forlorn

Gestures of escape.

Sylph am I

On the cold ceiling

Of bottomless earth

As I crawl

Hither and thither,

The darkness nearing.

Sullen indifference

Gloats on the surface

Of this motley-mated scheme,

This hastened arrangement

Of objects and things,

And evokes

From the fetich of my mind

The fragile scenery

Of a half-remembered dream.

If the callous fingers

Of stolid silence

Could but spur me

Into the activity

Of turbulent emotion,

Deliver me unburned

To the white heat

Of incandescence,

I might remember this day

As my nativity.

Structure

31 lines · 4 stanzas