The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Oxidation States

Do you prefer the romantic wiles
of swaying in monet-pastel-doppled hay
leaning in the mauve of cathedral shadows 
resting on clouds of pink and gray?

Or rather the jagged ragged strokes of
the existentialist struggle of being prey
brooking no charcoal smudging of the
furnace-purchased renderings of brushtip play

Nor the archeological elegies of the victor
spoiled and smiling beneath bone pitted clay
reassembling comic stripped stories of 
cryptid margin illuminations of the impish fae

Yet comes the day when unleashed must be 
the yawp of ecstatic screams while heaven 
drips cream down our eyelids splayed
broiling our tired corpulence into consommé

So we may weep at the seasons three
bound between our leather prayers learning
twisted twine lessons to staunch the pain
to once again lay down in the springtime of rain.
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©2025 Mark Daniel Milbocker  All rights reserved.