Gather up the fragrant scents
   And catalogue the vapors,
Searching for the vagrant sense
   That animates the papers.

Sift the grains of vision's gift;
   The panorama's open
Hands invite but do not lift 
   The anchored spirit's coping.

Offer to the beating rays
   The tenderness of bodies,
And the frigid winter days
   The hardness of a sought ease.

For a smile give in return
   The precious eyes of wanting;
For a prospect to discern,
   An inanition haunting.

To the music listen not,
   Or maybe listen too well;
Open ears but chastened thought
   That only knows to rue hell.

Drowning in the blaring drone
   That powerlessness broadcasts
To the constant fears intoned
   With interlacing bombast.

What is it you wish to change?
   Perceptions of a viewer
That you feel is out of range
   Have made you toss the ewer.

What you pour out from your soul
   Sounds off beside the calling
Falls which, outside your control,
   Inspire instead your walling.

Jaded by the fruitlessness,
   The outside world's omission;
Every contact's shootlessness
   Ungrafting manumission.

Feeling only ignorance 
   Is what you may achieve,
You abandon present tense
   And make as if to leave.

Who defines the weariness
   That weighs upon the spirit?
Which of vicious fears insist
   That nobody will hear it?

Where exists the tyrant's keep
   Where sorrow gluts its penchant?
Who can penetrate so deep,
   And who will strike in vengeance?

What within me cried for you?
   What permeable passage
Gaped my heart to slide you through
   Where nothing else could manage?

Where in you may I explore,
   And what could I make happen?
How can I help you endure
   All aspiration's absence?

Who can tell the dreaded day,
   And who foresees its malice?
Who forestalls its wrathful way
   From deep depression's palace?

On that day who will defend
   The soul against its peril?
What external could contend
   To make the sickness sterile?

Looking from the outside in,
   What cry could make an entrance?
When you paint your doubt as sin,
   You leave slim hope for penance.

Who can pierce the solitude
   Of self or lift the mask to
Kiss the truest soul imbued;
   If not me, who, I ask, who?

Storm again these pelting rains
   That blitz upon the surface
Of the pond, our sheltered games,
   And all the corporal purchase.

   Remember, you had wanted
Rains to drown the world without,
   To deafen what had haunted 
You in yawning lifelong doubt.

None appeared so you had joked 
   And couldn't see the reason
For the image uninvoked,
   But now it's come to season.

   Some loves survive on rations,
Thriving through the budding form;
   Some like the weather's passion,
Fleeting as the sudden storm.

Mirror of the Summer pond
   Reflecting all the living,
Coupling calls which some respond
   And some continue giving. 

Stiller now than Summer's day
   When warmth becomes much dearer,
Calls still echo on their way
   About the Winter mirror.

Spontaneous combustion–
One day existing lamely,
The next in some construction
Macabre explode insanely.

A normal life unravels,
The sudden moment's mortal
Ignition casts the gavel
With flaming rage immoral.

A ticking bomb awaiting
Beneath the surface, flicking
Abruptly, detonating
So many lives–a sick thing.

The symptoms go unnoticed.
The temperatures are seldom
Surprising say the closest
In contact with these venoms.

Demise is now endemic,
The cases ever rising,
Society's aesthetic 
Is terror-yet-arriving.

No questions, no prevention,
No scrutiny, discussion,
Just ever unrelenting
Spontaneous combustion.