"Hail to the" by Kasper Salonen

hail to the cannon of hindsight that punched its white rose through my face & bled me dreadful dry,

hail to the salmoneyed bleat of mornings without creased colours or the faces of strangers,

hail to the errors of light counting my surefire motion with candles for fingers,

hail to the opiate-declining sky,

hail to the rooms that digested night's carnival masks & held me happy,

hail to the halehearted spasms of your wounded ice,

hail to you & your spies at least twice!

my indigo creak like brown paper is the sound of forgetting.

these gnats are biting my sealegs, their racecar whistle muffled by the smell of mustard

& piss and the tremor of smiles that last whole blocks in the wind—

when did we come this far? is that our house with its single eye open?

I think I've shed the detriment, because there's still a sliver like a silver shawl

snaking in cement, like an ivy wall ready to ferment, like a tidy scrawl waiting to be sent

but its subliminal cramp has faded into the ripped wafer of old jeans

just fleeting in the seams.

now gold-ringed fistfuls are chief among my twigthin concerns,

ready to flutter to ash & cranberries, empty plastic & tenderness, the eyesight of zen.

sticky my feet when summer takes a shower with its lipstick on. but a final yawp

before I give in to the blend:

hail to the ropes & mouths of time that bind and lie,

hail to the mirror where I live,

hail to the parrafin light where sleepers meet!

hail to the poison that cools me when found,

& hail to the feet of the thief who drowned

with the antidote stuck in his teeth.