Protean Rivers

The poet's eyes spin counterclockwise, angel chaff,
mercurial orbs. In brightest noon's day, protean on
soft, crooning nights where his mantle is held. Oneiric,
chainless, the green marshes ill with laudanum flakes;
he is a pulse kissed star, beyond Prometheus, perforate
in exhausting sight. The scribe should be a bodiless brew,
unrelenting in pursuit of what no cherub can exactly say.
Or he must inhale the grim shadow of reality's oblong face;
all the hothouse, all the indexed pages, all tea stained smiles
of an hour or two's discomfort should be done away with.
Pry open the mouth of shadow, shed the ego as a diamond
snaked coat, or don't begin.