I

In the hazy beginnings

And endings

Of days

Run,

Blood in these veins

Driven by beat

Mechanical

And beat divine

Subway wall

And station hall

Prophets change

Salvation

To bread

Their words run

Through me

As the drums

Pump youth

Through tunnels

Dying to be young

Steaming

Steel

Souls and bodies

Minds and wits

And dancing feet

Slipping on tile

Spilling hot and red

To the surface

To sacrifice their heat

To wintry breath

Through the veins

I run

The blood

Through hazy beginnings

And neon endings

Of days

To the place

Where the prophets

Fall silent

And all is flesh

And madness

And time’s jealous eye

And the beat

And the bodies

And the youth

Run steaming

Through gutters

Stopped up with

New-fallen snow

Cigarette butts

Nips and buds

And dancing feet

From the moon

They come

These feet to run

In these veins

And spill in

These streets

Driven, dying

By this beat

Through brilliant frozen

Midnights

Of surrection

Oblivious

To the neon beginnings

And endings

Of days

.

By Jason Anderson