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)