The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Xor Gating

A challenge blooms into being 
with a nod though bumblebees
may wait for the odd florescence
to glow like fireflies of the night
strange fruits hanging low 
like scars we shan't forget
so long as we perseverate
in muttering mantras to menace
the howl of onryo hallelujahs
and the pestilence of the familiar
that drives us to dissect 
in vivo our automaton organs 
and prick the jiggling of middling 
structures like baleen balusters
of ontic omentum held up to an 
arena of carbide lamps where 
fantastical feats of fearlessness
distract from the binary thumb
of other augers and auspices as 
death flows over the oxblood drain
and we toast to our botryticisms
and sigh to the wisdom of 
caduceuses coiling around the 
exclusions of telescopic blindspots 
and we await the howl of a howitzer 
to free us from the arcanity of 
the hail of hallowed letters.
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