I do not want to steal your eyes
To trail these words upon this page
Or bend your ears to understand
The scent with which I see the stars

It's not my way to throw your mind
To twist and bump to fit my flow
Or fish from where your river turns
To catch what's yours to make it ours

Or hook you in with words that pull
Your skin to stretch around my verse
To waste your precious time again
With thoughts that press or view that jars

Forgive me, but we're now this far
Things sunken in necessity
Where like corpses in a stream
Green water eddies round our scars

And now we're at the bottom line
I find my eyes have wandered off
From this papery filament
To rage at how the dark side spars

Through fatalism, death-of-God
Impotent river with concrete banks
No path for human feet to tread
Me cast to Venus, you to Mars

I rest my case, run for the hills
To steal your eyes, to trail these words
To bend your ears to understand
The scent with which I see the stars