I’ve got swaths
empty patches
dark spaces
and latches
soft spots and sweet spots
mine fields and black blots
but I know where to find them
waves come and go
by the strand
but I learn how to ride them
even as livid
might be where I stand
I’ve still got my highway
to hell,
my stairway to heaven
and these are my etchings
drawings and sketchings
of where I am at
a tell-tale for stragglers
straydogs and hagglers
for those on the rim,
reproachfully jaded
this is the yield
that which I offer
through poetry traded