Paradise in the City of Shivering Bells

Division orbits us,
the bedraggled,
the fornicating poor,

naked in desire
at the altars of our stigmata,
our aching, all

tenuous, all allurement,
as the moonlit minutes
rise into the thin

lungs of our distances,
as we who are parched
in revolution’s verdant

pastures attend
to the audiences
of our torturers,

who pardon nothing,
who beat our dissenting
sons and daughters

on the anvils of our votes,
as we turn away, contented,
all to stingy of our revenges.

Copyright © 2006 S.D. Lishan All rights reserved
from The American Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission