Stop

The practice of verse is piratical
it stops the ships of states to plunder them
it boards them and inspects them, delves their holds
to find metaphoric amphoras there

it is all so sudden and out of sight
in a twinkling of the light of our star 
or in the night of a much farther star
it is less than lightning, intimate goad

that yet changes all, rearranges awe,
will not abide my sleep, insists I dream
in unwilled waking’s full ferocity 
that lets meta-morph run unbridled wild

always on the bounding main, liminal
criminal, I sail rakishly from stop