Determination

Is every day in this city a death
in the face of sleep?
Fast currents run out their research
no longer confidential.
We become customers browsing caves
lost, uninstructed, alone without respect
for any other love that walks on by
so hard an aloneness that may capsize
or close down lives.
We are no longer confident but outdated
mere soap bubbles
in a pool of broadcasting corporations.
We have no hands which can bear this force.

Tell me if I have shifted, if I have merely posed
and my fingers grasp tenuous locks
opened for my liking
if I have failed and you can give me no answer
if no-one could find me
no one carry me
to your spread of shy waves
as sky & light disappear ferried by the hours
by manufacture & blast.
How hard it is
learning to handle the weight.
Is it the price? Recording our inner longing
outside boutiques of pleasure.

Even within decrease
or whatever must be postponed
a dubious night that could be our ruin
or a morning flowering with grenades
when great hulks turn over
stacks of a system
even if we are woken by storm
we still eat our fruit
as if undefiled by ropes, locks, court orders.

We publish our pulse within
each other panting, the heat.
Our determination skates the hours
skinning low on night
uncontained.