Hypertension Poem by John Weber

Lacing up my zipper-tooth fingers
          once gripped by reciprocal
exaltation, I breeze through familiar
rudiments with firm self-involvement
          in dire contrast with the pink
penance of compassion, until my
eyes swell-up from focusing

on the sea of apathetic decisions all
          heaped upon by conscience
and the nobler elements of my psyche.
Murmurs build urgency with tapping
          force, each shove propelling
blood and code onward to assail
faults in such global perjury.