“Under Walls”

“Under Walls”

Let the judge decide

let us jump ropes

let us hang

a raven

expires to newspapers

inside a cluttered attic

let’s sing a duet in the dark

your pipes are clean

and every last oval is oiled

the train stops nowhere

kitten is afraid

my body doesn’t belong to me

or you

remember when music

made fireworks,

a series of communications,

articulated in beads of sweat

the back-lit streets

where you were hung up in the barely

with all those scarecrow men

potato-peeler rend

if I could guide your winning hand

across astrological maps

where dead gods lay

goddesses their ether wreaths.

Tags: Nicholaus Patnaude, poem, under walls