Given a vision in hands.
Offered a cruel notion.
Bestowed with demonic rubdowns.
Given the gift of sand
and a gaping void in the sternum,
making a fine thing from it too,
something now and new;
that which leans toward the cockamamie
and serves no purpose.

Donations of blood
are pouring into our offices.
Red letters with bread.
God's head on a silver salver.
The wound's wedding presents.
A hand-out of frozen fingers,
vein-threads and bone needles

Given a honeybee and derringer.
Given a ghost-laugh.
The gold-leaf rose.
Presented with Pharaoh's ice-pick.
A sniff of the Icarian Sea.
The char of carbon castanets.
A lachrymose insect.

On a planet most beneficent . . .

Conferred upon your heads
is sunlight brushing a candle,
a sigh granting you a brief reprieve,
and then it's back to your toil.
Or you're given a last chance
to strut into Heaven's abyss.
Thrown a spare bone.
Blown a few wet kisses.

Making of these things what you will.
Rushing into a problematical mind-set.
Attending to the higher airs.
Building a fine house
in the good quicksand.