51 Steps
51 steps
by wynn everett
A. No Forest of Arden, forced forward
reverse, revolving in pattern,
contorting backward each rung.
Every strand of the prize in black and blue-
print, engine of fingers
gripping tight to the rail.
T. Unlocking remorse,
(men under the stairs)
if Ganymede had coded
the ray strung exposed-
evolution applauding,
crystallizing in prose.
G. But the string would have snapped,
bases blotted, erased – and
back on the shelf, in cupboard to store.
Arsenal sketching on corkscrew terrain,
gender glued gently on canvas binding the tale
of six feet sprinting to ribbon in coil.
C. The verse was not blank-
and the strings doubled tight, threaded
lip into lip. Pairing always the same,
the edged sword not dull,
slicing feet with the climb,
twirling, tripling the year.
And so lesson in cipher,
digging deep under slide –
when unzipping Frankenstein
X does not mark the spot.
“Wether or not?”, the sheep’s guide would ask upon searching with sheers uncollaging the woolly rear, have not seen the horns of plenty that bend into the lushes bush to provide a sacrifice, a drop- a single corkscrew tail sailing off into that great well- known only to the future that sucks us forward like a string through a silly straw. Lost inside this stack of needles, the camel pack (filterless of course) squeezed past the customs official to find my lips. I read, I read, I reread, found Gene, a missing link embedded in an annoyed Gene’s account, and here I find the genome. It claims to me that all I see has underlying (or simple on the surface lying) meaning hid within. It all depends on how good my lungs are; cause I have to climb the stairs, accept the stares, except the stars as just out of reach but for my eye to see Aries and Ganymede or just air and some guy I met and then descend again to ground floor.
Level 1, mezzanine please.