If only all the world’s nations could
pool their people into a sixty-year orgy,
mix all the paint in the same bucket, so to speak,
where we’d whirl a thick, liquid hurricane
whose only eye is a clearly blurred sweep
of one color we’d paint our prison walls with
to calm us down when nightsticks are
just canes to support short tempers
and we’d look up to find the ceiling’s been lifted,
flung off somewhere, and we’ve turned
the sky’s limited-edition blue t-shirt inside-out,
hidden seams blossoming light beams
to blend us blind, but we’re still too busy
adjusting the tints on our rec-room monitors
to rebuild those pedestals we so often soapbox on
rather than oxing erasers around for old slates,
erasers I’ve mistaken for brushes, not just
to paint over something anyone could
say, but anything that could be said.
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