Byzantium
by Brant Goble

Serpentine as streets
           in a city fallen long before my time
           is my incremental wisdom
                      (extruded
                      with a hard press)
           for which bespectacled men scurry
           (eternal children, really)
           building
                      to building
           vulnerable and seeking
                      oblivious
                      but to my
                                 will
           seismic
                      beneath
                                  them

This is a swaddled world
           (with swaddled babes within it—
                      sensual [and silken-skinned]
                      and still protean
                      [swollen and {mal}nourished
                      on corn syrup
                      and inanity]
                      —
                      weak
           but in their fears
                      [gone berserk and electric]
                      [naked and mad as dogs])
           And a new order
                      of disembodied minds
                                 (reckoning [but if they could]
                                 with sympathetic oscillations
                                            [yet devoid of sympathy])
                      behemoth and infallible
                                 (for who would dare to let
                                            such elaborate deception
                                 [envy of the world]
                                            fall
                                                       away?)

Behind the glass
           (among the rigid tubes, pumping sterile lifebloods)
                      we are legion
           and the air would be sweltering
           but not for our commanding the entropy
                      (however gracelessly)

Are we the last of the first pioneers
           reduced to prey in search of predators
           (swine now chasing wolves)
           run ragged for fear of introspection
                      (or the death of novelty)?

Who dreamt of this—
           stricken with what passion—
           of hard hearts
           and bones as soft
                      as
           sea
                      foam?

Brant Goble is a technician, perpetual (graduate) student, and editor (of Gander Press Review). His works have been published by 55 Words and management consultancy groups.

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