The hex of darkened clouds
that blow by earth's putrid
wound; seals in the minds

aspirations, drives down
struggling characters that
would happily populate a
tree in spring. Tell tales

from a lone branch of a
       willow sprig.

While armies march to battle
or refugees run from slaughter
and happy people jog to the
peaceful music of sunny days.

It is a terrible hex enticing
passions of the desiring mind;
drives children from parents
and sets student against teacher
while innocence spirals upward
to empty space; monsters are

left to laugh when women come,
dressed in blue, to pick over
pieces of the dying. Fast

moving clouds reveal woods
where a poisonous atmosphere
seeps and stirs. A world
horrible in implications is
dreamt in some anonymous room.

And dangling wires loop the planet
three times to send a sound clanging
to the resurrections of peaceless sleep;
dreaming between fallen stars where the body will keep.