all the city is abuzz with certitude tonight
the wingless bee ready to sting and fight
and die without regard for any day but this one

i feel both ways and neither about this sad fact
a scarecrow or a poet, I am both with each attack
i grow weaker and less certain what can be won

suppose I win the argument but lose your smile
or worse, the friendship we built o’er this while
together in this mean little dark little place?

what then is there for me but agonizing loss?
certainty, that covers the meat beneath a rancid sauce
and leaves us wondering why we said grace

at all. the raven circles about my empty head
cawing out the half-true lies every stranger said
with such confidence and recklessness

i square the circle or cube the starchy roots
it’s hard to tell am I with him or in cahoots
with the fantasy of a fawning press

this city where i live in peaceless peace
we yell for little things like hope and release
our demons on cardboard by the street

proclaiming ourselves as so little even
a sticker can reveal all we believe in
— such words (of course) are just conceit.

tell me, magic voices that dance on air,
do you perceive the tragedy of silence there?
Or is that noise so loud you can’t

find the path to a sweet benediction
of honeyed words and principled friction
as the opposition chants