(new transition poem ambushed me)

Late

Before you say
You are too old to change,
Listen:
Some of these new hairs
Are already
Silver
It is never too late
To climb out
Of your grave.

Rat

The poem says
Hope is a sewer rat
Adapted
For survival

Despite the plague
And the filth
And the hate

And I
Got the t-shirt
The one with the rats
That says
"You will not
Exterminate
Us"

That they
Resurrected
For rats
Like me

But I am
Sick
Of gnawing
A way
Out

And so tired
Of the stench.

Set

Miscellanea:

The polar stars
With fixed purpose;

Thunderbolt iron
To open the power
(Great of strength)
to speak;

Confusion;
Discord;
Overcoming that which would
Annihilate;

The sinister and redheaded;
The foreign.

And
Problematic
Men—
Angry drunks,
Queer,
And the ball-less.

Collected.