For Michael Menut
Grab onto every tocsin and send it streaking across the reinforced sky
Holler out catapults of denunciations toward the ramparts of paradise
⦴ ⦴ ⦴ ℳ ⦲ ℳ ⦳ ⦳ ⦳
Gather them all brightly, carousel them into filigreed constellations
From where you look down
And glitter sabled chimes over
A population too dazed by their perfect articulation
⦴ ⦴ ⦴ ℳ ⦲ ℳ ⦳ ⦳ ⦳
Marauders invertebrate there in the marketplace
Hand out fevers like spearmints
Hackneys extracting unctions from the veins of slums
Exhuming a fusillade at the pulse of a continent
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Glanced by that whirlpool, raise your flute
And theorbos will sound out with you aeolian
Racing against myelin
Choirs will carry your supernova through the zenith of the day
Bearing the fresh stigmata of stifled printings
Pock-marked and blast-branded
⦴ ⦴ ⦴ ℳ ⦲ ℳ ⦳ ⦳ ⦳
Just continue—fill sheets with drumbeats of praise
Just conjure a Marseillaise of promised exultations
Andy Oram
December 11, 2022