Butterfly Effect / On Edge
rating: +7+x

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.

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