Rebel

The angry man in the street
with his hand around a stone
is aware of the truth
his life has become and unable
to suffer alone any longer,
his dream of peace now dead,
with one smooth arcing motion
relieves the pain in his head.

(His wife moves in her sleep, like fire in the wind.)

Forgive me, sir, for being young
and having faith in things alive.
I should not want your patience strung
between the poles of my life's drive.

(My blood burns, even my dreams are inflamed.)

You are one who likes to ponder
things like net and cost and grosses
while I am one inclined to wonder
if we aren't the sum of all our losses.

(My brain burns, even my thoughts are inflamed.)

How can you claim to be so right
with credentials such as these:
pieties stuck beneath the nails
of men speaking heresies.

I must not ever turn again
from the self that is my own,
and you as well must never turn
from the seed that you have sown.

(Lest our bodies burn, before the world is in flames.)