A Minor Directive

Drifting into its original rage,
the squalor of an unbegotten age
breeds banishment, abandon, and decay:
evolution with a view to dismay
and to persist in its impertinent
muttering. Our mild-mannered stuttering’s
worn away its idiotic patience,
monstrous with a many-tongued fluttering.
The embers of an impious decree
cement the mettle of its mystery.
Deep inherits deep. Song inherits song.
We’ll neither score nor orchestrate for long
until a pentecostal tenderness
returns, elides, elucidates our need
to shake three centuries of sleeplessness,
to take—a word of certain good—and read.

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