the tongue pulsating in the crossroad between my heart's chambers, somewhere along the blurred line between Pneuma and Psyche; speaking freely in silent well-thought
letters, what the other one (the one you can see, the one that fools you) does not dare to declare, cannot form in clumsy pink-fleshed clicks or simply, does not know

the lonely friend in lonely times, solitary quencher of solitude; when no one
remembers your name, in suburb flats or monastic mountains or thronged desolate tube rides, you remember it to poetry, to yourself, on deaf paper patiently listening
to your claims, comforting, cheering,
saddening, enlightening you in white death.

the sword of cutting criticizing words, of
unwillingness to bow down, mold to,
be slave to the microwave era; defender, knight in inky armor, of meditation,
appreciation, of gradualness of budding haiku butterflies, ambiguity, complexities, paradox of going slow to get farther,
of finding satisfaction without a dollar
value, a productivity rate.