The Art of Being No Help by John Grey

somewhere
someone
is making another do
something
they don't want to do
and the thought
of that coercion
guts the landscape
strips it down
to raw wildness
too bestial for
my sensibilities
as my fear caves in
to wind and cold
and suggestion
my pathetic protests
shrunk to footsteps
cranking up
the neighborhood
with dumb echo
and I do it so well
my powerlessness
becomes religion
and the air smells
like both surrender
and escape
and I don't care
for one and
get high on
the other

- originally published in Palace Corbie #5 (1994)