Gerunds Poem by Lonnie Hicks

'We are no fragile poets, ' he said
sipping panaceas;
no,
we bleed in these bloody times.'

Our descriptors screech-
show calluses.

Our gerunds
are heavy-laden,
participled
and unrelieved.

In our time
we've had sex
with the dark and delicious.
Our tiny lusts are autographed
on our eyelids.

We have ridden the night bull
and kissed cold similes
licked razor blades,
cut ourselves.

Our body linings
have slipped to edges-
scabs removed-
our scars exposed.

Our loves have been tattooed
on our foreheads and we consume
what we love best.

We've known villainous reprieves-
raw extremes.

We've seen our low expectations
sucked dry;
our joyless roses decline to bloom;
we have seen steeled excusings,
blatant excrescences
resent me's,
poxed regrets,
vampire ideologies,
deeply cutting debaucheries
and Unspeakeries.

We've had
our wisdom wrung
from emotion's sponge;

our oasises
have been carved from pulp existence-
our meanings extracted
from Carpathian realities.

We are no fragile poets then
opining on slippery metaphysical surfaces.

We are similes' survivors-
denizens of the electron brainscape;
voices winnowing;
down into the strangled world;
our task is, nonetheless
to re-dream all things.
Our callouses grant us the mettle,
our hearts show the way
our determination is un-sunk.

We must be the Rough Poets
eyeball to eye ball
with both Dream and Reality;
we must brandish
the seemly
against the unseemly
and remain true to Poetries.