Licked

Inspiration is but fleeting:

A flinching moment in the night.

Its carnal tongue preceding

The shiftless cardinal sin of SIGHT

So with these winds of discontent

I’ll wander aimlessly in search

Of rabble-rousing wonderment

To inflame these embers wracked

With soot.

Because in your absence, in this wake

A flame refuses to unfurl.

IT languishes in malady

Tepid in its stubborn coil

And in this flaccid freedom,

I’m untended in respite.

As in this tone-deaf melody,

An opus spurns its heights.