When all the old rhymes cease to move
and the heartbeat’s leathery bark
chokes the mind from much-needed spark,
what is left for the soul to prove?

When humid downpours saturate
brown silted streets, drowning pollen
and dreams, while my lungs are swollen,
what is left in life to narrate?

There are thoughts but never the truth
lying between death and breathing
in mucous membranes of lost youth.

I now prattle my deepest sooth:
truest life is always seething
against the stream of senseless ruth.