Ocean In A Jar

There is a cunning on the table,
tiny cancers in a coffin
with leather handbag lips,
so beautiful as they pucker the surface
of the heavy water
atop the desk I made in school.
Knives on flint
souls in a honey pot,
little bullets
spitting back and forth
among shipwrecks and rubber ivy
like lost comets.

Underwater with the blind
are diseases on their way to scabs
looking for crusty silk.
Rockets in china cups
charging and clucking on sugar.

I spy quick moods
un the waters when lights go out,
like shiny hangovers and oils
dissolving in whirlpools,
shards of peace with shifty eyes.
Such artful lords with scaled guises.
Buzzing, buzzing,
buzzing, buzzing.
Murders in the darkness.

@Steven Francis poems 1997