Farsight
Frames so unabashedly ornate
They might have inspired awe,
Turning in the air,
Carving out polysyllabics
Like flashing gold blades,
Then returning to their mount
With halfhearted resolve
To resume their chief occupation.
It’s a wonder they’re not crushed
Under his beleaguered brow,
So heavy it looks, muscled
From the challenge of toiling
Under the unjust demands
Of all our foreign idioms,
When he’s charged,
Without excuses, to pass on
What he’s charged to acquire.
Such a bastard thug is language,
Bracing its arms between us,
Palms against our eyes-
His eyes laboring clumsily
Over the misarranged symbols
That he glues together with memory;
My eyes burning with pity
That claims no allegiance.
He would not thank me for my pain.
He sacrificed his native mores
To sail off the end of his world,
And he pays our charges daily,
To keep the passage closed.
