Loneliness, sometimes you’re small as splinter
slicing through scrotum, digging deeper with
each gouge to extract. Sometimes you’re winter
forsaken by sun; gnashing wind screams myths
of ancient light once blessing skin’s soft pores,
now flaking like lepers’ decaying sight.
Sometimes you’re bloodless bone, its vacant core
arid as gaping mouths of dead dogs. White
eyes reflect your despair. Sometimes you’re new
screen in HD, black universe daunting
with glowing marble toy, swirling sea-blue
and cloud-white, Dylan and Baez haunting
our withered hearts with false hope, final plight
as we watch our home devoured by night.
Roger Armbrust
June 25, 2009
