channeling suffering into a shape

a rigid rhyme a twisted jape

a hunching humor couched in verse

a cornered crack of cagey quipping

upright lark or longways curse

all suffice for easy skipping

behind the prancing and the putdown pride

a dark unspoken chasm deep inside

my heart is breaking all the while

by the drawing of my breath

another lonely long green mile

lived before my final death

-x2A