WITHER AGON

Come withering mayhem,

bunch my circuitry in ruin;

You know my weakness

                    for disintegration--

not just the cervical discs,

but the eavesdropping of  evermore

the insult of age & duplicity,

the powerlessness of peacemakers.

Get going, if you can

vamoos along some outward boundary,

some spacious distance lost,

some irregular stressed outback,

or a fixed tribulation unimaginable

Voices making do with inertia

or a condensed sorrow. But

even now everyone comes aboard

the big heavy municipal buses,

the launched pride in movement

Watching a bird on a wire

the other day, I saw

how the bird balanced with a tail,

not unlike the big turbojets

bolting off across the skies

--Bill Pearlman