The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
The roots that lay beneath cobblestones

The roots that lay beneath cobblestones
once vigorously sipped from cracked-open crypts
only to be cleaved into hewn road fodder
the pristine perturbed by history clacking across
and an inundation of polished loafers in trench-coat-masks
the once verdant vigor of vaulting canopies 
blooming with nectar nut eaters and butterfly beatles
birthed the ground from a foundational chemistry
in a sweet chorus of mycelial bliss and earthworm eulogies

But as with all turnings, the solar churn sighs cool
and straining tendrils dry in burly curls awhirl
clinging with a last grasp at the water's edge
shedding itself into husks of lost composure
time prunes youth's flow into a thick molasses ebb
even terpene-heavy honeydew ferments to forest resin
a copal coupled with the perseveration of lichens
yields an amber hue in the starlight of parted clouds
for loss ever lulls beneath our hallucinations
as we squint to catch the cosmic glint of steeple rays.
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