Epic Nothing

Syllables are
long and fragile, with a weight

And surface slightly larger than a human hand.

These inviolate bites can walk down a hip and rich

walnut bartop, or waft through mists of spit unimposing;

they can sequence any amber DNA or solve any goldbranded,

prime numbered proof. They can concoct a cocktail of aural pulps

and lathered shame, and perhaps hit a homeostasis between

Greek fire, slewing for borrowed silvers, and Promethian liver.

Instead, I hear them spearpoint drops shook from beards,

And spurn gods through wobbly lips, cloudy gods who blink

too often and too close to usher back a response from these men

slumped in brutish silence, these who marvel at magic in their soup.

The tension plays beautifully, striking the absence with blows and

beats in brackish drops and bronze, fording through tendrils of pork.

They savor their salty curls, in cautious slurps of air.

A ruler’s width of windowspace mirrors the grainy seams of

grunts and sighs, a paned face of blinking bolts and dust thunder,

and a slop odyssey of modern men enjoys their sirens on the rocks,

Playing their doles to the dirt