The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
The Gathering

I wander and wittle and waffle and tittle
garnering sweet nuggets of knowledge
among the briars and cobbletombs
prostrated ear beckons for a whisper
between the spires of architected chants
erected by dark mages who self-indulgently 
giggle at their own labial excretions
leaving pewtridly puritanical blank visages
ash-pocked with carbonic deference ne'er
daring to swim in the oceanic fabric of
lifeworks stacked into the cognitive reef
that brought us to this dappling noonlight
no, it stings the eyes that deflect their
gregarious gaze onto the proffered ferula[1]
as blessed waters are cast upon their corneas
with borrowed bushy branches from an 
unknown tree from which we hang 
until we scurry beneath the hawks and 
pack our cheeks with acorn glyphs along 
the cliffs from which we must leap
and learn to swim again to the furthest shore
where we may reunite nude and unneedy
with all the survivors of our race.
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