My Heart A Fist

All around was destruction and futility,
my heart become a stone centering this, now
target of opportunity knowing I must
escape the closed fist clenched against
what had already crept in unannounced

except by sleeplessness amid alien shifts
of those who would not welcome anything
but all must prove obedient and adrift
while a longing for what had been pleasant,
uncomplicated and feeling missed

remained signals of the slow collapse of all
absences compressed into the mist, the
invisibility, a loss too pronounced
to be defined by sentiment capturing it
into anything else but representatives

of the good and true and beautiful
not masquerading as anything but themselves
free above the landscapes looked upon,
subject not to the evil minions of trivialities
raised up and worshipped senselessly

in an obsession with decay and cowardice
captives of all that’s ancient and untrue, yet
aware that flight is song and life not death-in-waiting
nor the traditional suicide of massed conformity
of minds closed and refusing the abyss

©Dean Baker