Rouse

I awake but to suffer

the ephemeral elysia of dreams defaulting;

I rouse but to endure

the callous hive in frenzy.

Walk through the doors:

A sterile undertow

of dogmas and protocols innumerable.

A life sequestered on foreign shores;

stultifying hymns of diligence and temperance

fuel the dirge proletarian.

But what of the specters?

The phantasmal lodestones

bearing the weight of day’s past.

What of their nebulous potency?

The immeasurable quality

assigned to these pillars of foundation.

At times it is but jargon personified:

Events and Loves and Moral Crimes

transcribed into eloquent lies.

I awake but to succumb

to truths ungainly, conquests long past won;

I rouse to elegize

the gifts squandered, the passions gone.