To each their consequence I will not see,
I wish the wood that sits soft on my ass
by caravel, that folds the heaving sea,
their eyelids empty filling lensed glass,
whose curve collects the athenaeum wing;
the edge of skin lights strangers' foreign lamps
and stranger oils, now kips for light to sleep
tonight. The fetch which whips in its advance
the salt, that in my lungs occurs to breathe
salt-air, that profiles strati overcast
in dial-dark hours, that give delivery
to each their consequence I will not see.
To each, their consequence, I will not see
since bar-time's found itself three minutes late
to break the hour on the minute three.
No razor-edge for scab or skin to flay,
nor bed to suckle two opposed sheets,
no two red tongues an unkind word will say
to migrant boys who go and raid police
whose stations build the calloused hands of slaves.
One who once would cut the barman's drinks
was told to go, for —it is not your day—
the cut, the flop, —well whose day shall it be?—
To each their consequence I will not see.
To each their consequence I will not see,
and so unseeing said —don't stay past dark
in this town, understand?— for anthracite,
like nightfall, trees with dark and sweetened bark
in our mines cannot give the world for free.
And how was I to know the skies would part,
and men would drowning cry in New Orleans
and once-gray towns alike? in Typhon's heart,
atop the rot of seven-horned sheep,
evangelists still sing of best intents
and sin, and lie, and dream eternity
to each their consequence I will not see.