(From Houses of a Crystal Muse, Wild Embers Press, December 2019)

How I,
my ego-fiend-self,
craves
and wishes
and desires
to take ultimate credit
for the words
and poems
attaching themselves
to their mortal host, John Biscello,
thinly grafted to his signature and persona,
but deep down
I understand all too well
that there are forces at work
and play,
which are beyond me/my name,
of which I am a frayed stitch
in a gracious skein,
and my heart, the fool’s testing guide
and tramp
to a fathomless row
and drift,
puckers its secret lips
to kiss the rippling hem
of whatever muse, whatever form/less
bastion of grace
tenders fluency to offerings,
i.e.,
how a puddle
is sometimes lucky
enough to intimate
the largesse of the sea,
to hoist pearls
just above the murk
and fallacious din.

Image by Anthony Distefano