Virtuous hums a hymnal reckoning

Floats the humid air 

Of Harlem in morning 

Swaddling rot of brain 

To take rest in solace 

Of strange rooms and 

Stranger corridors winding 

Skeleton key twisting 

Record book to sign thy name 

Blood of my Christ! 

Not yours

Never yours. 

 

Wet soaks through 

Armored boot of 

Leather stink petrichor 

Nickel iron clacking 

Asphalt visions of 

Angeleno dreams, a beast 

Who sleeps until awoken by a stare

Stretching sinuous limb to gasp for

Air the hot barrage of summer’s choke 

Fueled in part by temperaments

Bound to that hollowed ideal

                                                           California 

Always tasting sweeter 

Than it appears 

 

Falling through sky to quench 

The thirst of worlds which wait for 

Me, fission fissured flank

Riding course without so much 

As a moment to think or the chance 

To be