words and space, selected and arranged
My hands of lesser years were tense with life,
So squirmed in having been bound to a mast.
Their strength was braced for terrible delights--
The pleas of siren song all sovereigns pass.
A tease evades a captive's memory,
Grows quiet, parasitic, then she feeds
On vigor in a silent harmony
Of waning life and withered, aging dreams.
She winds regret through paths of idle years,
Ties gastric knots about pale reveries,
Then firms and chokes to a gasping nadir,
Till bowels transform to dense eternity.
Freed hands fell limp when my command resumed;
We set sail for the other side of youth.