Gray teeth plunge through toast

& sunlight through soiled

windows rainbowing greasy

dishwater puddles: slum as

majestic as Grand Teton if we

look, only look; spin things

to their altitudes to pull down

the ascendant wonder—hunger

ripples, need resonates, figures

float—how much you got? Guns

in playgrounds, fools in office;

frosty church, futile nuns, idiot

priests & this goddamn glass bead

chaplet: how many rosaries have

I told, how closer am I to heaven

if there is a heaven? If reborn I’d

ride proud through phenomenon-

free destiny—god if there is a god

a god of liberty & equilibrium

not war & devotion—from now on

I zigzag, lust for a better mind, pale

kings overshadowed, advocate nothing:

though poor, noble, a creative zealot,

a butterfly asleep on the village bell.