Tense:

A frown was forming

Over a worried eye.

“Nonsense,”

Says the tongue, warming

To a hurried cry;

Yet the teeth began grittin’

As the splintered nails were bitten;

The neck became strained and cruel

As its blood turned hot then cool;

While the fist was clenched tight

With its knuckles wrenched white;

The heart started to burn

And the stomach to churn,

For the gut was full of knots

As the muscles pulled taut;

But in the head,

From the brain was fed,

“My patient resistance

Has been stretched

To a thin line of time

Between sanity and sadness,

Between profanity and madness.”

(written in 1972)