Urgency's Commando

Get Up

My modest passions need a switch,
a roughing red welt on the backs
of legs. They need to get bold
and bad, outsized as a solar flare,
            urgent as a wish transmuted
to a porcupine's embrace. It's hell

to stuff resolve in the coarse sack
of routine . . . the billeted effort threatens
to splinter the door that pretends
to define unity's dimensions.
            Isn't it a crass version of divinity
that rewards temerity? The fire's breath

at an ear lobe focuses the broad spectrum
of distractions . . . to find a point, to slide
the length of a sword's steel ruin
            and forage like a tornado through
my life's neighborhood. All my opening wounds
healed through the intoxicating axe-swing,
through the dodge-game on the expressway,
through a star's sizzling pop on the optic nerve
unveiled. Fantastic resolution . . . not one more
            corseted night for remorse to claim.