Rhyme is a pulley

but liberates like slough,

sunk in at its edges

verily carries me off.

Its ancient hinge

releases my refugee –

the unreachable wound,

an unrepentant effigy.

Hostages provocateur

stalk the undone

tossed up like a shipwreck

under a mock or mean sun.

Blows like a fire eater

into the overbright

playing chess-with-death,

valiants desolate the night.

What bandies what bounties

the fickle and the fled

rhyme releases disquietly

rings out the undead.